


Where You Get Them Scars

by WaldosAkimbo



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Also let's study why Half-Nut is the Way He Is, And Bad Decisions, Blow Jobs, Go on and Kiss the Man, M/M, Not even that though, Slave Yondu, Sneak that Bit In There, We almost have sex, and then we don't, booze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12985443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Yondu wanted one thing and that was to work on his damn projects with some peace of mind. But Stakar has decided he's earned the title of Captain and gifts him the Eclector and a crew of Ravagers to call his own. However, things go from right to wrong and he's left without a first mate.Kraglin's been abandoned on a tiny planet with no means of escape. That is until a certain surly Blue man comes to the brothel he bartends and takes an easy shine to him. He'll do anything to get away from his old boss. Anything.





	1. We Ain't Soft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anybody is part of the Tartarus crew, you may recognize Vlor in this! And then you may recognize Vlor....no longer in this. Congrats on that.

“Yondu!”

Stakar rushed up from behind and clapped the Centaurian on the scruff of his neck. He’d disrupted the rare quiet spared in a dark little supply closet carved out of the Warship. Yondu liked to go there sometimes and mess with any of the weapons discarded by the crew. He didn’t have the head for updating translator chips or recalibrating gravitational skewing tripods, but he could figure out how to make something kill something else better and faster than before. That’s where his personal expertise lie.

“There you are!”

Stakar had him cornered, inadvertently blocking the only exit to the supply closet. The walls were thick and there wasn’t a vent anywhere along the corners or seams where Yondu could kick open a grate and slip out. He was looking for one to be sure, even as his mind fizzled from the fear of getting grabbed outta nowhere. Holdover from whenever his master came aboard the battleship, back when he was under the Kree. It was all about finding an exit, all about getting to safety first before anybody else came to dole out their punishment. His wrists burned, expecting a jolt. Least he kept his feet steady under him. Sometimes they gave out, like a new hook had gone through his calves.  

If there was no exit, look for a weapon next. There were plenty spread out in front of him and, for a flash of a second, he picked out whichever one was the sharpest, wondering if he had the speed to grab it and put it in Stakar’s neck. Not that he would, no. Right?

Yondu went stiff from head to foot at the hand on his neck. It’d been a cycle or so where he was all alone with the churn of the engines to keep him company. No need to speak, no need to put up a front, he’d sort’ve melted into the work bench there and got lost in wires and bullet casings. There was a Skrull adaptor crystal that’d he come across during their last scavenger run, and he was interested in piecing it with some standard Xandarian riot-control gear. The hand there on his neck was a reminder of others, detached, painful, and he felt his heart skip a beat. He dropped the blaster like he’d been caught with something he didn’t have permission to hold. It clattered unceremoniously to the floor. The Skrull crystal skittered under the bench and dinged across the grated floor before it slipped away, probably lost forever. Shame, really, seeing how Yondu was really looking forward to seeing what kinda power it’d’ve brought.

Not that Stakar meant anything by his casual gesture. He promised, since day one, that there weren’t anybody aboard the Warship what would lay an unwanted hand on Yondu. Just saying it and actually feeling it were two different things, and Yondu still wasn’t sure how to shut that fucking part of his brain down that feared it so. Stakar was warm, brassy. Loud. He glowed sometimes when he was feeling particularly well about himself and Yondu understood there was something desperately powerful about him. Had to be since he made himself out to be Admiral of the Ravager fleet. His fury was as bright as his joy. Yondu felt small and weak next to the Ogords, back to that sickly thing they’d done found on the battleship. It turned his stomach, but he wouldn’t say a word about it to nobody. The hand scared him. Always.

There was an accompanying pop through his fin implant to go with the physical sensation of fear. The fin was a gift from the Ogords to cover that unsightly mark that split his head and went down his spine. Sure, it didn’t compare to the real deal, the bright red fin of his people, but it was mighty nice of them to present the thing at the end of one of their missions. Again, Stakar had put his hand on Yondu’s back, specifically his shoulder, something they agreed meant a friendly touch and he’d done a good job. He’d said something about how they was gonna make him a presentable sort, and he paid to take ‘em down to a proper Nova Corp hospital to get the implant attached. Fit like a dream. Went with an heirloom too that they’d lifted off a passing Centauri Junker raid. Martinex had fished it outta the wreckage and said it practically belonged to the kid anyhow. Yondu dared him to call him a kid one more time and they scuffled, throwing punches. Yondu bruised his knuckles on that Pluvion skin while Martinex laughed. No fair fight, but it was a friendly fight, and that’s what was important. Friendly fight. Friendly gift. Friendly hand on the shoulder. Breaking all them old habits from the battleship.

Yondu only had an inkling what Yaka wood was, but he felt instantly connected to that arrow. Like it was a missing key to his heart.

“I.” Back in the supply closet, Stakar gripping his neck, and Yondu’s skin shedding buckets of sweat. Yondu jerked away from Stakar’s hand, fighting to escape. But Stakar kept up with him for every move and the fingers squeezed a little on Yondu’s neck. Yondu finally choked out the words, “I didn’t do _nothin’_!”

“Didn’t say you did,” Stakar answered as he readjusted his grip. Finally something softer, more a reaffirming hand on his back than that vice grip. Yondu could still feel the pressure points from Stakar’s fingers lingering on his skin and his stomach didn’t settle a bit, but he could breathe. That surge of adrenaline that spiked through Yondu’s system started to seep outta his limbs and his heart was hammering hard, but the threat itself was gone. “I wanted to show you something.”

“What?” asked Yondu.

“Just come with me already.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Why don’t you ever trust me, son?”

It was a rhetorical question. Stakar had a big smile cut across that square face of his, his eyes glittering like they did whenever Aleta talked him into something truly deranged. He might’ve been happy, but the look did anything but make Yondu feel better about wherever it was he was being dragged to.

Stakar’s Warship echoed around them with busy Ravagers, sparks flying from M-ships under heavy repair. Yellow strips warning hazardous material illuminated their walkway in columns while the grated floor made a timpani song from their boots. The ship itself was parked outside Victus V, lumbering along in a steady state as Martinex and a few of the Ravagers ran errands on the planet below. The stars around them was littered with old boats, huge space fairing tugs that were in various states of disrepair. Victus V was where one went when they wanted to ditch an old ship and leave with some extra units in their pocket for the trouble instead of letting the thing list along in the void. A Junker planet. But the _best_ Junker planet, so of course Stakar sought it out.

They came up on a window bank looking down at the smoggy planet of Victus V. Rolling red clouds colored the poles as streams of gold belted the center. It was almost kinda pretty, in its way, but nobody could pay Yondu to set foot down there. Him and most of the other blue-clad Ravagers aboard Stakar’s ship would need a breather just to survive and the thought of having a mask on made Yondu start to wheeze. There were memories tied tight with all the times Yondu had to find himself a face mask and he shuddered instantly at the thought.

“Come on. This way.” Stakar walked up to the thick glass of the window bank, spreading his hand across the surface as they peered down. “Come here,” he said again, and Yondu near spit on his captain’s boots before he finally stalked up next to him.

“What?” he croaked out.

“You see it?”

“See what? Looks like a party out there for a bunch o’ Junkers.”

“Sure,” said Stakar with a laugh rumbling deep in his chest. “If they can make it past Victus’s patrols. You ever see these guys defend their turf? It’s something, let me tell ya. No, come on, right there.”

“Right there?” Yondu asked, and stabbed the glass in the general location where Stakar was pointing. “You mean that big old bugger listing next to them pea-brain hull peelers?”

The big rust bucket was littered with little white machines crawling over its surface, picking away at the metal and silently sparking at the sealed broken gashes there against her underbelly. Even with the obvious hull breach, the ship looked pretty good. Ugly, but good.

“Yeah, you know what they call her?”

“What’s that?” Yondu asked, his hand still on the glass.

“The Eclector.”

“Kinda name is that?”

“Her name,” said Stakar and laughed again, harder, as he clapped Yondu painfully on the shoulder. “You call her that, she’ll serve you well.”

“I wouldn’t call her fer…wait.”

There was quiet then, and that itchy bite across his skin that he’d been lead into a trap. Yondu tightened his fist at his side. He should’ve practiced more with that arrow of his, then he could probably stick everybody in their guts and get out. But that rumbling laughter in the captain grew, filling him as he stepped back. Yondu didn’t have to turn around to see a group forming behind him. All them ghostly faces in the reflection of the glass should have gave it away. Normally getting cornered meant some of them might’ve found something sharp sticking through their jugular if they tried to take one too many steps his direction, but it was clear, even in the reflection there, that they was all smiling and laughing too. Yondu tapped the glass once, twice to steady himself before he pivoted around. He wore an easy grin then, slapped it right there on his face like he was puttin’ on makeup. Stakar’s crew beamed and they was all friendly faces, the one’s who’d been there when they raided that Kree battleship and pulled an emaciated little shit outta the wreckage, bleeding from not-so-fresh wounds down his back and face and the ones clipped up his calves. These were all faces he’d come to trust in the dark and lonely stretches of time out in the void, rediscovering what it meant to be a man.

“What say you then, _Captain_ Udonta?” Stakar asked, his big ugly mouth chewing up Yondu’s name with a glowing pride. Almost literal with that glowing part, too, seeing as how Stakar put out waves of illumination. “That’ll do for you?”

“You for real?” Yondu asked, but he was already swallowed by the crowd. Too many hands were grabbing him, patting him. Faces he knew. Faces he loved. Faces he knew. Faces he loved. Yondu kept that smile on to hide any of the panic and he fell into their embrace this time. Let himself slip into the praise easier than a dip in water for his weekly scrubbing.

“Our new little Captain Udonta!”

“Shit, now he’s gonna have a seat on the council, huh?”

“You earned it, Blue!”

“Of course you’ll need a crew,” Stakar was saying over the hullabaloo, his voice carrying low and deep, cutting anyone outta the way by their ankles.

“Any of these bastards wanna come with me?” Yondu asked through a grin, flinching as someone slapped the side of his head in a playful pat.

“You thinkin’ about poaching from me?” Stakar asked. He screwed his face into an intimidating scowl. “Cause I’ll fight ya on that one, Yondu. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Never would expect ya not to, sir,” answered Yondu. Stakar pushed himself through the crowd and grabbed Yondu’s shoulders, steadying him amongst everyone. “So when’s she gonna be up and running?”

“End of the turn,” said Stakar, gripping his shoulders, his thumbs pressing into the divots there near his collarbone. “Think you can fly her?”

“I’ll fly anything you like, sir,” said Yondu.

“Ah, this kid.”

Stakar dragged Yondu down into a quick neck hold and pressed his knuckle there at the edge of Yondu’s fin. They scuffled like they’d all grown up that way, playing to fight so they was ready when the real deal came. Nobody held back blows aboard Stakar’s ship, not for nothing, but they always meant well. It’s how they said “hello” and “welcome to the family.”

“First thing we gotta do though,” said Stakar as he finally released Yondu back into the crowd. “We gotta find our newest captain here a crew. Hey? Sounds like we gotta send out a party to recruit!”

“They gonna be any good?” asked Yondu, and Stakar laughed again, belting it out as a bright flash the color of a star grew from the center of his being.

“They better be, huh? They gotta answer to you.” Then he thumped his knuckles against Yondu’s chest and, while leaning in almost conspiratorially, added, “And me.”

The cheers echoed around the Warship, like they’d all burst into song.

*

“Who’s gonna answer, huh? Who’s _got_ an answer? Huh?”

They were gathered there in the hangar bay, smoke still roiling off half their ships as Doc and her team administered quick slap-happy treatments to the few that could survive it. She scurried over the grated floor, her claws digging holes as she went, a pair of hands drawing a drought of KnockOut while the other pair cracked the seal on some burn salve for the kid missing half his face. The Tailor was right there next to her, threading up the few who could stand stitches before he slipped off to another. They were a team then and gave out orders better than Yondu could. Let them work. Anybody with an aptitude for sewing, caring, or mending and who hadn’t been nearly shot to shit during the raid were following in their wake, taking orders as they came.

The rest of them sorry sonsabitches were scattered about, lounging on any flat surface what would hold them. Yondu had half a mind to collapse where he stood. There was fire in his lungs and something wet snaking down his side, a stitch there under his ribs that seemed a sight more worrisome than usual, but he knew how to keep his feet through exhaustion. Plenty of times he’d worked himself close to death and this weren’t any different. Except now he had to deal with people. Now he had to give _orders_ and make right with the chaos of his green-horned, lily-livered, shit-stained crew.

“Who was it s’posed to keep an eye on that perimeter once we’d done cracked their shields, huh?” he barked out, voice raspy with effort. “We got twenty dead cause somebody didn’t know how to keep their damn eyes peeled. Somebody who didn’t know how to use a comm link when they was needed or their mouth weren’t working and it sure as hells ain’t workin’ now. So, who was it?”

*

Recruiting ain’t hard for Ravagers. Every planet that’s stepped out into space and knows their way around a ship has some seedy underbelly crawling with the kinda insects and low lives who’d make a fine life for themselves on a Ravager’s ship. Usually meant a trip to somewhere with a bar or a brothel, some place the men onboard could blow off some steam. They looked forward to recruiting. They cheered at the mention of it, already counting units to figure what they might spend it on once they were down planet-side.

This was the first time Yondu went recruiting as a captain of his own ship. He flew his own M-ship beside the Ogords, who had put aside their differences long enough for this special trip. Several Ravager clans were available around them and they’d be plenty easy to spot down on Oplos, dressed in Stakar’s blues and Aleta’s greens and even Charlie 27’s unusually bright gold. Charlie 27 flew out with his clan the moment he heard Yondu had made captain and promised he was gonna be there to help recruit.

“You don’t think I would ever miss this opportunity?” he asked across the channel, his huge Jovian head taking up most of the screen. “This is your first crew. These are going to be your brothers in arms, you compatriots. You will rely on them as you would family. I cannot expect you to pick them with such abandon as Stakar might allow.”

“I can _hear_ you,” Stakar had said, standing idly by the relay bank.

“I would hope you had,” said Charlie 27, his grin so wide and bright, it nearly cracked the screen. “We are arriving shortly. Prepare to be boarded, Stakar.”

“Promise me something, son,” said Stakar and kicked away from the tower. “Don’t ever go on putting any kinda heirs like that big galoot, huh?”

“What kinda heirs I got, huh?” Yondu had asked.

Stakar pushed his fingers into Yondu’s chest and answered, “Exactly.”

But with the old crew all flying down together, it felt natural. Felt like Yondu was right where he oughtta be. He was too full of all this damn goodness that he didn’t even mind the fear of what was to come. He’d have a crew and he’d carve out his own little family, just like Stakar had done, and Aleta with her gals, and Charlie 27, and the nearly hundred other clans. It’s how they survived and Yondu was electric with the possibilities.

The bar itself was a frequented place by Stakar. An Aakon fella by the name of Funthro opened his doors once he saw those navy leather uniforms and stepped up to Stakar like they were childhood friends.

“How were your travels, Captain Ogord?” Funthro asked, hovering down close to Stakar, even though he was damn well Charlie 27’s height.

“Funthro, my friend, they were divine,” said Stakar and clapped the Aakon’s back as they embraced quickly. “Tell me you still have birk on tap?”

“For you, Captain Ogord, always.”

“Hey, yer the best.” Stakar chucked Funthro on the chin and it almost felt like he meant it. Then he turned and swept an arm behind him. “You met my lovely wife Aleta.”

“Ex-wife,” Aleta answered and came over to shake Funthro’s hand, even as he came down to kiss her knuckles. “For the fourth time.”

“Aleta, my love, my sweet, my dear, you don’t gotta do this every damn—”

“I am not the one who forgot—”

“I didn’t. I didn’t! No, hold up, it was one time, you’re right, but, hey, you put that knife in my chest again I’ll fry yer—”

“You wouldn’t have the balls t—”

“How big of a glass of that birk can you pour for me?” Charlie 27 asked as he stepped around the Ogords, taking the Aakon to the side in a friendly, gentle hand. “And can you pour me three of them, please?”

“I-I-I, uh…of course.” Funthro looked back between the Ogords, who were in each other’s faces and screaming at the top of their lungs. Yondu smiled fondly at the fight, remembering a few of the juicer altercations that had nearly decapitated Stakar. Say what you will about him being a powerful being, Aleta was the one who could really yank that chain. Funthro bowed to Charlie 27, grateful for the distraction. “Of _course_.”

“Thank you,” said Charlie 27.

“Get me one, too!” said Yondu and when Charlie 27 popped his eyebrow up in a quizzical look, Yondu feigned back and shrugged. “What? Ain’t this my first time recruiting? Buy me a drink, Two-Tons. Come on.”

Charlie 27 smiled despite himself. “Fine.”

Yondu smiled back, beaming like he was king of the whole damn planet as he followed Charlie 27 into the dark, pulsing interior of Funthro’s bar. Aleta hooked Stakar’s ankle and dragged them out from under him. It was a last second save that kept him off his butt and he used that last second to slam his big meaty forehead into Aleta’s face, breaking her nose. He found one of her teeth carved into his skin and they both rolled in the dirt.

“You going soft, Stakar?” Aleta asked, taunting him as she straddled his chest. He grabbed her neck and whispered, “Never” before she pounced on him like she was in heat.

*

People moaned a low, miserable chorus in the hangar bay. One of them, an older man with more metal than sense, fell to his knees and wept. He was quiet about it, did it in his hands and made no showy sounds or wailin’ or nothing, but the sight of his shuddering shoulders made Yondu sick. He stepped off his little platform and kicked the bastard in the head. The Ravager fell to his side, shielding himself from any further blows. Wouldn’t even take a proper beating with his damn face or nothing, so Yondu raised his boot and struck again.

“You know what caused this?” Yondu yelled, and kicked the man over so he was splayed out on his stomach, trying his best to protect his head. “Cause y’all’re soft! Soft wits, soft bodies. Don’t know how to steal worth a damn.”

The man whimpered something quietly. Nobody was coming to his aid then, either too exhausted or too scared to take some of their captain’s ire. Good. A feeling all dark and mean was bubbling inside him and he figured there was nothing that was gonna take that away except if he beat it out. Yondu raised his foot again.

“We! Ain’t! Soft!” he screamed, punctuating his statement every time his boot met another tender fleshy part of that poor bastard’s backside. He kept going until the man weren’t moving much and Yondu’s side was burning too bright to carry on. He collapsed there, sitting bowlegged with a bunch of quiet, beat up assholes as company, breath ragged as he continued. “We ain’t soft. We ain’t soft.”

*

“Now I know what yer thinkin’, Captain, but it’s as easy as pie if you know how to trip up their shields.” Vlor tapped the screen, skinny little fingers jabbing through the holoprojection and skewing some of the data points. Yondu thought he might have to force extra rations on their thin Krylorian there if he wasn’t gonna figure out how to bulk up on his own. Lad never learned how to accept food when he needed it. “Big pay out, too. Big big.”

“How big?” asked Yondu, feet on the table, a thin bone off that nchektar carcass between his teeth.

They had all the best players in the room with him then. Tullk, a Xandarian who used to be a bounty hunter lookin’ for something a little safer than skimming jobs off Tortak radars out near Haederfasti. Horuz, who walked a life nearly identical to Tullk’s, just coming off a different part of the galaxy and with half the wild-streak. Xarti, a Pluvion cousin of Martinex who came highly recommended by Stakar’s First Officer, and Vlor.

Vlor was Yondu’s First Mate, picked straight from the bar where he’d gone with Stakar and Aleta and Charlie 27. Picked wasn’t the right word for it, rescued was more accurate. Scrappy kid, really. Something about Krylorians just set off a slaver’s despicable mood and too many of them been collected when they was young and impressionable. Vlor himself had been through the slave rings since he’d cut his first tooth, of which those teeth had mostly rotted away. Did some awful stuff at the hands of some worse people. Trafficking was pretty standard, and these young ones got pushed through brothels even less reputable than the ones Stakar and company liked to share their patronage at. He came running outta one of the back rooms where his fate was being discussed like they were picking out meat from a slaughterhouse. Yondu jumped to show off his shiny new Yaka arrow skills. He even smiled as he handed over some units to pay for the mess. Asked Vlor if he wanted to join up with the crew in the same breath. Vlor had a wire or two loose and harebrained plans for jobs when he could connect two thoughts together, but they somehow worked. Yondu saw something in Vlor, something buried in there. The kid was nice. Smiled all the damn time. But he was quick, resourceful, and when he went over plans with the captain, Yondu knew Vlor would spot all the sharp and deadlies laid out in front of them.  They’d managed to keep everybody aboard the Eclector safe and, more importantly, paid.

“Big enough to finally get the name Udonta out there,” said Vlor, that reddish face of his peeling back in a wild grin what could only be matched by Aleta Ogord. Yondu was amused enough to smile back. “I’m tellin’ you, sir, if all my intelligence amounts to anything, it’s that we can do this.”

“Don’t know if your intelligence _does_ amount to anything,” said Yondu.

“Nice. Nice. You cut me, sir. Cut me right in the good parts.”

“Not yet I haven’t. So, how sure are you, then?” asked Yondu.

“Seven hells, ya gonna grill me on the combination locks too?”

“How sure?” asked Yondu.

“Pretty damn sure, sir.”

Yondu wrinkled his brow, picked another piece of meat out between his teeth before he looked over towards the others. Xarti was as hard to read as Martinex, his arms crossed and his icy face stoic in the dark corner of the room. But Tullk was nodding emphatically as he looked down at the blueprints and Horuz didn’t look spooked by it.

“What’d you guys think?”

“I think the boy’s right,” said Tullk, poking at the projection himself. “It’s only these shields we really hafta worry about. Got the routes, got the joints picked out already. Team over on this side would pick off any security and we have the roster already. If ye gotta team there ye can trust, I say go fer it.”

“See?” Vlor asked and slapped Tullk on the chest. “He gets it. You get it. C’mon an’ get it, Cap’n. Only thing we really need, really _really_ need, right, is somebody with a decent set of eyes to watch out for us.”

“Who you thinking then?” Horuz asked, arms crossed as he considered everything.

“Not that it’s my say so,” said Vlor, hands raised in concession to Yondu, who appreciated the gesture.

“It ain’t,” said Yondu.

“Not that it is, not that it was, but I was thinking, oh, y’know, I dunno, maybe Gef?”

There was a beat, a horrified pause, as Vlor looked around the room. It was a serious position for a serious gig, and the person who was keeping lookout had to be perfect. Vlor clocked them all with a hard stare, letting it sink in before they all burst out laughing. If they put that glassy-eyed bastard on lookout, they might as well shoot themselves all in the temples now and save themselves the fuel.

*

Yondu didn’t let Doc tend to him until everybody else was looked after. He scooted back over to his platform, sitting hunched over his shaking knees, and watched as Doc and the Tailor tended to his crew. His first mate should’ve taken over then. Should’ve stood up and barked out orders to make sure the Eclector and her crew hoofed it on out to some safe space far away from the smoking wreck littered behind them. Except now there clearly weren’t no first mate left. Seven hells, there was barely anything left of his remains. Yondu looked at his knees, his pants soaked black with Vlor’s blood. He could still see Vlor’s face go pale as the first bulkhead dropped on his legs, a thin hand shaking in front, reaching out for help. Yondu didn’t even have time to whistle his Yaka arrow into Vlor’s skull, put him outta his misery before the second bulkhead dropped. It was almost like his head popped like an overripe fruit, splashing Yondu with hot septic-smelling fluid and bits of bone biting into his skin. Gone. Just gone. And all he had left was that thin hand and the stain on his clothes to remember him by. The ex-slave who’d been picked up by the Ravagers and meant to make a name for himself.

Yondu was vaguely aware that some of the Ravagers had taken it upon themselves to go talk to the nav team up on the bridge. He expected Tullk or Horuz had led them, filling in a painfully empty role of First Officer best they could. Yondu couldn’t think about actually filling the positon then. Not yet. Not while his hands were still warm with blood or Vlor’s bone chips still imbedded there along his cheek. The ship was moving. Yondu could feel it beneath him, that little tug that carried them off. It was his constant, it was his all, knowing the engines were broiling and they were moving, damn them, they were moving.

Yondu clenched and unclenched his hands. They were almost sticky now. He looked down at them and shook his head to clear out some of the fuzziness building up at the edge of his vision. Quietly, to himself now, he just muttered, “We ain’t soft. We ain’t soft.”


	2. You Find Something You Like?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yondu just wants to drink in silence, ya jackasses. Also, Martinex makes an appearance!

There was a thrum of light. Instant, like the flash of a cannon fire before it tapered off to the low pulse of pink and orange neon common among Nidi’s LoveBot Brothels. She had a slew of them across the quadrant. Good place to go if you were itchin’ for company and couldn’t stand to make the jump to someplace more open like Contraxia. The crew was in said hurry and needed to burn off some steam. Needed to do some recruiting, too, but Yondu didn’t see any joy in it this time.

Yondu closed his eyes inside the lip of his tankard. There was a pressure building along his brow that he did his best to ignore as he gulped down half his drink. It was greasy, bitter, and twisted his tongue like a corkscrew. If he had eyebrows, the fumes alone would sear them right off. Best damn ale in the galaxy, if he were to judge and jury it. He didn’t quite smack his lips, of course, but disappearing in the heady vapors of his cup was a nice reprieve.

Another flash. This time followed by dizzying sparkles of lightning overhead, like twinkling arms of silver. And then a roar, applause and jeers and what-have-yous. The locals were less impressed than the tourists, but everyone noticed the man who was putting on the show.

Fast Daddy Dimb leapt up onto a nearby bench, boots thundering against the wood as he held metallic-ringed arms out to the crowd. Flashes of light played around his eyes, dancing across his fingers as he took a bow. One of them clone boys out of a defunct Kree lab in Halfway space. He was a spectacle wherever he went. Tall, barrel chested, built like a Jovian with a blue-silver shine to his modified skin. Since he was named Dimb, it meant he was second born of his clone boy pod family. Yondu didn’t have to worry about sibling rivalry much—not in the traditional sense, anyhow. Martinex would argue him till the sun cycle started they were like brothers, thick as thieves, all that nonsense. That Pluvion could shove it up his perfect glass-coated ass for all he liked. But, hells, Yondu didn’t have to worry about any _blood_ siblings, at least. His parents would’ve shoved them off to the first slavers in the quadrant just to buy themselves more time. So no use imagining what it’d feel like to know there was someone out there who beat ya to being born. Maybe Fast Daddy Dimb there was doing what he could to make his older brother Prime proud. Jealous. Either or.

Fact was, Fast Daddy Dimb was practically an Asgardian with all his lightning tricks, like that one fella with the hammer. Made a name for himself as a hero type, a real people person. But if anyone said Fast Daddy Dimb wasn’t a fan of damn near every brothel, bar, and orloni betting ring he stepped foot in, they weren’t nothing but a liar.

Apparently Fast Daddy Dimb had been in town a while, like he’d set up residency on Nidi’s hot tropical planet, no bigger than a moon and twice as populated as the capital of Xandar. There was a room upstairs squared away for him that was stocked with four of Nidi’s top shelf LoveBots. Four was impressive. Yondu ordered himself three when first they stepped up to Nidi’s place and felt that was a mighty fine number. Then again, he weren’t a lighting spewing play-god clone boy.

Yondu tilted his cup back and finished the drink. Five down and he weren’t even buzzed.

“Hey,” he barked at the nearest from his crew, a prickly lookin’ fella with needles all over his face. A Gvolo boy. One of the pick pockets, if he could be called that. Didn’t carry a blaster or a knife, mostly because Gvolo anatomy regrew poisonous needles and he could just huck those at anybody if he so chose. Which he did not. Worked the engines sometimes with Horuz and put on a gunner when they tried to rob the Nurplex D’di Bank.

In and out gig, same as always, and brought to the table by none other than Vlor. Sonovabitch. _Sonovabitch_! Forget it, drop it, let it _die_.

The Gvolo never shot nobody. Had a name like Huf or Gen or Tigs. Ah, Yondu didn’t care. If Needle Face couldn’t shoot a man, what was he good for? Yondu squinted at his crewmember. Hand-picked by Stakar, likely to watch Yondu’s back and report to Ogord when he fucked up for real. Came from that first Recruitment voyage back when Aleta and Charlie 27 were with them. Seven blue hells, Yondu didn’t want to think of that. Didn’t want to think of anything. He slapped his tankard into the crewmember’s hand.

“Fetch me another.”

“Aye, Captain,” answered Needle Face, pumping his fist against his chest. He was fresh to taking orders if he was quick like that. Quick on his toes, not that it was inherent to his species.

Seemed everyone was quick on their damn toes these days. If only they’d been quick during that raid, maybe then he’d have Vlor at the table with him, laughing about that fucking clone boy’s lightning antics and scheming up a fresh new way to fleece him. Vlor had a gift for petty plans and the likes. Always found the quickest route, too, and never did touch nobody, which Yondu appreciated more than he said. They’d come together like the damn stars aligned for them, like the masters what would crush them into dust were just pieces on a board, setting them up for that kinship they was unconsciously clawing for. Instead, slapped between them two bulkheads.

Where was that damn drink?

Yondu leaned into a small standing table littered with a few empty glasses. There was the blaster he’d taken out of his holster to rest and act as warning in case someone tried something stupid. It was more for show than anything when everybody on the Eclector knew it was the arrow at his belt you had to watch out for. He looked through the undulating crowd of red-wearing Ravagers mixed in amongst assassins, head hunters, brown coats, patrons of Nidi’s, business men out to pasture, scumbags, and other sundries dancing with Nidi’s golden LoveBots. There were flashes of blue amongst them, the dark leather of Stakar’s crew. Looked like another clan was staying in the area too, a group of purple-clad Ravagers over near the bar. Fedar’s crew by the looks of them—four Fonobi and an A’askavarian. Fedar always favored Fonobi recruits over anybody else. Something got messed up in his programming so he figured that’s who he was, through and through, a Fonobi with hard metal skin.

The sight of Ravager uniforms meant that they were also enjoying a quick vacation on the planet, just as they’d promised they’d be. Didn’t look like Aleta’s crew was anywhere around, which meant the Ogords were beyond words at the moment. She’d probably tried to blow him up again on some dusty planet like she did for their anniversary. Not that she couldn’t just be hiding around some other part of the planet. Yondu figured if Stakar was here, Aleta weren’t far behind. Still. Shame not to see her.

Now, Yondu would never admit to choosing Nidi’s tropical paradise simply because his old captain was a frequent patron. Not cause he’d got hold of Martinex neither, drunk in the dark hours, spilling his guts out about Vlor like he’d been gutted by a serrated knife from neck to belly. Never. All it meant was Yondu could rub elbows with proper Ravagers. Or sock someone in the jaw. Fuck with a familiar face. He needed that just about now.

That, and maybe pick up a decent piece of shit bastard who could serve as his second in command.

Yondu pushed himself away from the table, splashing through a puddle there at the edge of the little wraparound veranda where half his crew was slurping up drinks and spending time with whatever caught their fancy. None had come over to bother him, much to his relief, but it was usually a good idea to keep them there at the edge of his vision. Not now, though. Now, he stomped off, boots through a puddle, ignoring the splash of greenish mud up the side of his pant leg. Clearly they’d seen worse. He tugged a little at the decorative scarf tied round his neck, the same one that masked some of the scars he’d gathered in his youth. It was still tied close enough, even with the oppressive heat beating down on him like a giant hand. Whole place was hot, Dark. Damp. Nidi’s planet was a sticky mess and it only served to double Yondu’s headache. He couldn’t believe he’d been born on a shithole like this. Maybe the only blessing he had of getting away from it was that he didn’t grow up in a swamp like Nidi’s planet. Probably woulda just made him soft and sweet and dumb as shit like those miserable bastards that brought him to life.

“Capt’n!” someone cried through the hubbub, a familiar voice that nagged his ear like a child whinin’ after his papa. Yondu snarled before he wheeled back on his crewmember.

“What?” he yelled. A flash of red went through the implant fin. Damn thing still popped and hummed a few times. Sure, might’ve been a gift, but he’d pay for anybody who could calibrate it right.

Tullk, ugly bastard with a scar cut up across his mouth like a poor parody of a smile, stumbled out into the muddy street after his captain. He had muddly little stringy bits of hair braided down his scalp, tied up with decorations and a tattoo littering his cheek. The man looked old since day one and Yondu could only imagine he came outta his mama with a face like wet leather. Him and Horuz were two of his best, his brightest. He needed more honest bastards like them.

Tullk slammed the refreshed tankard into Yondu’s chest and took him aside.

“Not that I think yer thinkin’ o’ doin’ what ye might think ye might, but I think it best we step aside here a bit and have a chat,” said Tullk, low and conspiratorial like.

“You drunk already?” asked Yondu. He squinted at the Xandarian like he’d sprouted a second head. “Any that s’posed to make sense t’ me?”

“Well,” said Tullk with a slow blink, an easy smile. Boy leaned in and slapped Yondu on the chest with an easy gesture. “I was watchin’ ye eye that crowd.” He nodded over to some of the other Ravagers, ones in particular who had Ogord blue. They were laughing hard amongst themselves in a tight-knit crew, not like Yondu’s clan sprawled out across the moon like a net with big holes. “Ye wanna pick a fight with Ogord?”

“I ain’t pickin’ a fight. I’m just _lookin_ ’.”

“You lookin’ with that arrow o’ yers, sir?”

Tullk didn’t know what the seven hells he was talking about. Peace keepin’ little shit, is that what he was? Weren’t he supposed to be a bounty hunter in his time? Yondu snorted, eyed Ogord’s men appreciatively and wondered if he might get a few more drinks in him before he went up to his room to let off some steam.

“Got my arrow fer something,” said Yondu quietly. He rolled away from Tullk’s hand; there were a few missing digits and metal replacements that he used to tap against the stone barrier standing next to them in a disjointed click-clack. “Don’t slap my wrist.”

“Weren’t thinkin’ it all, sir,” said Tullk. He smiled at the glass in Yondu’s hand and unconsciously licked his lips. “None o’ us here would.”

“I don’t need this. I don’t need this, alright?” Yondu slammed back the drink, his throat open wide as he gulped down the bitter concoction. He clapped the tankard back into Tullk’s waiting outstretched hand. “I wanna look, I’m gonna look. Came here—”

“—T’ relax, sir,” answered Tullk, holding his captain back. “Least tha’s what ye done told the team.”

“And damn right we should! Vlor got hisself killed an’ fer what? Fer nothing! That deserves some time off, don’t it? Get a fuckin’ vacation outta that.”

“Horrible way t’ phrase it, sir, but yer not wrong.”

“I don’t need this,” said Yondu again. “I need a somebody to take after Vlor. What’d you do before you signed on?”

Tullk tipped the tankard over and little rivulets of runoff dripped off the lip before he slammed it on the banister there beside him. He smiled at the hollow clang it made under his palm.

“You know what,” Tullk answered without looking up. “Don’t ask me to take after Vlor, sir.”

“Why? I only got two o’ you bastards I can trust.”

“’M just sayin’, sir. Ye gonna ask my advice?” Tullk was still smiling at the glass. “Ye can ask as pretty as ye like, I ain’t takin’ it. Know where I ought ta stand, if ye know what I mean. Don’t wanna man like me fer second.”

“Seven blue hells.” Yondu pushed away from Tullk, stumbling further into the sweaty crowd around Nidi’s brothel. Tullk wasn’t a Yes Man, sure. Him and Horuz were a team to push back if they thought it right to push, but Yondu didn’t want a “no” just then. He needed a damn win. Or a drink. Drink was easier to get anyhow.

The inside of Nidi’s bar was cooler than it was outside. There was a soft kiss of air as he shoved through the swinging set of double doors. It was an extra finger curl to get a patron to come inside and take stock of the wares offered, long as you paid. Nidi’s bar was red. Red ceiling, red floor, red booths skirting the edge of the room with low red lights pulsing along the floorboard. LoveBots danced with clients or littered the floor, twirling around long glass pillars filled with electric fangalors, their fins spread in a warning threat display. Gals there hanging from delicate cages from the ceiling, twisting their hips in hypnotic sways. Some were getting samples near the walls. One of the unaffiliated bounty hunters had his face huggin’ up on a LoveBot’s inflated breasts, his fingers groping along her chassis. Greedy hands, greedy mouth. Yondu pointed at the idiot, tipping back on his heels as he let out a low, waspy laugh.

“You find something you like then?”

The voice slithered out to him like some disembodied spirit. He didn’t make show of it, but his heartbeat was in his temple, reminding him of that headache he had coming on for a while now. Yondu felt momentarily exposed, a naked shock before he realized the smooth talker weren’t even aimed at him, and he melted back against the bar, tipping his empty cup again towards anybody willing to fill it.

There was a skinny little thing working behind the bar. He had the usual level of grime everybody who made their home on the planet had become accustomed to, but it was an odd sight to see inside Nidi’s. She had all them glittered up LoveBots that one forgot a thing like dirt and dust under those dim red lights. There were a few finger-length streaks down his cheeks and an oily mop slicked back across his head. But he turned up with a warm smile and an easy charm, leaning against the counter with one elbow, cleaning the same glass with a wet rag he slapped over his shoulder to show when he was really paying attention.

“Right away,” and “Yes, sir,” and “Already got you one,” came outta him easy as rain as he slid up and down the bar. What those drunk patrons didn’t see was that the friendly little vagrant there would wipe his glass, slap the rag back up on his shoulder and, with his free hand, slip it out to pick a few extra chips outta their hands or skate across a valuable little bauble hanging haphazardly from their necks like they’d no care who’d see it. He was quick, too, and made certain if anybody even so much as twitched towards the valuable, his hand had already ghosted away, leaving the item alone and on the move for something simpler to steal.

The Xandarian made his way down the bar until he was finally face to face with Yondu, who was waiting there all pretty-like with his empty cup and everything. The two shared their own version of a shark grin, beguiling but weaponized for whatever reason each man needed.

“What can I get fer you there?” the Xandarian asked, wiping the glass before he slapped the rag back up on his shoulder again, freeing both hands.

“A refill for one,” Yondu answered, and leaned down on both of his elbows, exposing a bit of his neck as he stretched across the sliver of bar between them.

“And?” asked the Xandarian with a little upturned tick in his lips. It accented a small scar there under his right eye, some little kiss of white flesh that stood out against his bruised complexion.

“What’s yer name?”

“Oh, me?” The man took Yondu’s glass carefully, glanced inside it out of some accidental habit, before he shoved it under a tap and began pouring some of the oily ale. “Call me Kraglin.”

“Kraglin?” Yondu snorted. He shifted so his back was now against the bar, stretching his arms out along the wood and pulling the leather jacket there tight across his chest. He glanced back over his shoulder to see that the Xandarian didn’t take the open invitation to slip a hand into Yondu’s pockets or nothing. Boy weren’t stupid, it seemed, as he leveled out the drink and scraped a metal straw cross the top of the head with an efficient flick of his wrist. “What got you in a place like this, eh, Kraggles?”

“Same as you, I expect,” Kraglin answered. Didn’t even flinch at the offhanded nickname. “Try that on fer size, sir.”

Kraglin placed the mug gently on the counter and slid it into Yondu’s hand. His fingers lingered, just a moment, to ensure that Yondu had a good hold of it, before he stepped back and grabbed the rag again from his damp shoulder.

“How’s that then?” asked Kraglin.

Boy hadn’t tried to rob him, not as far as Yondu could tell, and there was something a little more relaxed in his frame as they regarded each other. The mug was cool with a few rivulets of condensation dripping down the side. Yondu picked it up, downed three healthy gulps, and exhaled pleasantly over the brew.

“Not bad, Kraggles,” Yondu answered with his back still to the skinny little bartender. “Good fit, I’d say. But I was thinking….” Yondu looked back at the crowd around them and all them glittery folks dancing under the red lights, pretending to have a good time or, at the very least, programmed to do so. Then he looked down at his own self, at the dusty leather uniform caked clean through with blood and sweat and grime. No heirs. No pretending. The Xandarian fellow didn’t clean his face or wash his hair. No heirs. No pretending neither. Yondu sipped at the drink more tenderly this time and, with his face in the mug so his voice echoed back around him in a tin-tainted reverb, he asked, “Maybe I’d try you on fer size?”

Kraglin there hummed a little noise, low and sweet as his cheeks mottled an off-putting shade. He didn’t make eye contact, not exactly, but it sure was fun to watch the whelp squirm. Better yet if he was doing an internal monologue that weighed his options and came to the conclusion that it would be fun to go to bed with Yondu. A man could hope, certainly. Sure, they’d come to a brothel to forget, to fuck and fight all the softness outta their systems, and Yondu knew his way around all the LoveBot brands in the quadrant, but sometimes a man wanted the real deal. So what if it was a dirty bartender with sticky fingers. Maybe that just made him more alluring. The Centaurian gave Kraglin a wink, his tongue arcing across those jagged little teeth of his, but before he could ask what Kraglin thought of the proposal, there was a cold hand sliding over Yondu’s wrist.

“I thought I recognized those ugly marks.”

Yondu’s flirtatious smile soured into a sneer and he blinked slowly, buying a moment to calm himself before he wheeled back on the familiar face.

“A word, Captain?”

Kraglin seemed to understand something about the reunion and slid back down the bar, leaving the two alone. Yondu was almost sad to see him go, if for a moment.

“With you, Martinex?” asked Yondu. “Not sure if I can spare the time.”

Martinex’s cold grip tightened, pinching the skin on Yondu’s wrist as the Pluvion stepped up into Yondu’s face. There was a frosty aura that followed Martinex, a little chill in the air as though he was breathing out that freezing cold of his home world. His glassy eyes danced dangerously in the red glow of Nidi’s brothel, but he kept a calm face all the same.

“Please?” Martinex asked in his clear voice, crystal notes dancing in that pretty mouth of his. “I’ve only just got here but I wanted to discuss what we talked about last—”

“Stakar sent you, huh?” Yondu yanked back, trying to get his arm free, but Martinex had a good hold of it. Hardly budged. He wondered briefly if he could make Martinex shatter with the right push or pull. He hated that he imagined it and snarled towards his shoulder. “I don’t need none o’ this. Buy me a drink if you want to lecture me.”

“I’m not here to lecture. I would never. You know this.”

Did he?

“Please,” Martinex said again and finally relinquished Yondu’s wrist. He held up his hands, bowed slightly before he took a step back. “Captain didn’t send me, I swear. He’s finishing a deal out with Harker across town if you want to speak with him. But I won’t say anything about seeing you, Yondu, you know I won’t. I saw the red uniforms and hazard you’d be around. I wanted to hear from you. That’s all. I have only lost Xarti, and I do mourn that. We grew up together, he and I, and I grieve. But you. You—”

“Don’t,” Yondu shot back. His fin sparked again with just a little ripple of red. Just enough to show the threat was real and he weren’t in the mood to be pushed any further. “Don’t start down that road.”

“I do not know how close you were to Vlor, but I know how you get with—”

“ _Don’t_.” Yondu actually leaned in. He got right up Martinex’s space and everything. If he wanted he could’ve bit a chunk of Martinex’s face off—or at least tried—and he felt some of the fury that was coming through must’ve been enough to make ol’ Marti there worry he might actually melt. There weren’t fear, exactly, but Martinex’s eyes sparkled and he curled his mouth in displeasure. “Don’t say his name.”

“Talk to me,” Martinex begged. He reached out again, but Yondu slapped his hand away.

“Fuck off,” Yondu said as a warning. He shoved his way past his old friend. There was a room waiting for him upstairs and he decided he was done trying to drink himself into a stupor. There were other activities what could hold his attention a sight better than cheap beer and dancing floozies before they decided to go hunting for replacements for the Eclector.

“Yondu,” Martinex called out, but Yondu was already by the stairs. His hand lingered on the banister, not long, a hairsbreadth of a second, before he stomped on up to his room.


	3. It Weren't Pity, But Damn Near Close Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning! There be a dick in here!

There was a light on in the room rented out. Yondu knew it to be his room, too. They’d discussed payments down below and gave Yondu a card with his room’s name on it, the symbol a floating hologram stretched out across the door. The card evaporated once he clocked it against the door’s sensor and he smiled, looking down as he kicked the door open. The light was warm. Not flashy, but the fact that it was on was kinda nice. Yondu didn’t think anything of it as he started undoing some of the straps that clipped the front of his uniform together. He always made sure he was buttoned up tight anytime he was out of a bedroom. The layers kept him warm in the unforgivable cold of space while the restriction kept him half sane whenever he felt the better part of his mind start to unravel in the unsavory bits of memory floating on after him. He shoved past the door, expecting the dutiful LoveBots lounging about the room, perhaps coming off a charging disc or dancing near the bed. Nidi liked to program the gals to do these feather routines and bat their eyelashes like they needed to flirt or something. All that mattered was that they were clean, well lubricated and had enough charge to last a few hours. That’s all he cared about.

“Evenin’, gals, who do I have t—”

The three golden bots he’d ordered and expected to see all shined up were replaced by a scruffy beanpole pouring himself a healthy drink next to the bar. He’d undone a few buttons there near his neckline so that the canvas-like fabric flapped down in a slice of a preview of his chest. He glanced back and cocked up an eyebrow, cheering Yondu silently with his glass before he downed the drink.

“What’re you doin’ here?” asked Yondu. His hands were still stuck on some of the straps that conveniently laced across his chest, almost cutting a perfect stripe over his nipples. He leaned back against the door jamb and hooked his thumbs under the straps instead of undoing them the rest of the way. “Thought you was workin’.”

Kraglin didn’t give an answer so much as a noncommittal shrug as he finished the drink. He poured a second, thought better, and took it with him as he went towards Yondu at the door. He held out the drink and damn if that little smile on his goofy ass face didn’t make Yondu’s guts twirl all giddy like.

He grabbed the drink happily and took it like a shot, hissing through the uncomfortable burn before a minty aftertaste played on his tongue. Yondu admired the glass and said without looking up, “I already paid for them bots, though.”

“Three bots versus real flesh and blood. Figured the payoff were….” Kraglin shrugged before he glanced up. Kraglin smiled, coy and quiet, and with a nod finished off with, “Comparable.”

Yondu tossed the glass and it shattered loudly against the hardwood floor, splintering like a grenade as he took Kraglin up, ripping at the canvas top. A button flew away and Kraglin made a small grunt as the fabric tugged at his neckline, but he was quickly undoing the rest of Yondu’s straps, fingers quick and lithe like they knew every inch of that uniform. Pickpocket fingers danced over Yondu’s collarbone and he yanked hard at the cravat tied neatly around Yondu’s throat. Yondu grabbed Kraglin’s wrist so he couldn’t get the scarf completely free and the two admired each other, eyes blazing. The Xandarian’s pupils were blown out, skipping across Yondu’s face. They paused on the grid of scars over Yondu’s temple, not that the boy didn’t have a few marks of his own. Before Kraglin could get a thought out, Yondu sunk his teeth into Kraglin’s exposed wrist and they tumbled on towards the bed. A slow trickle of blue snaked from the puncture in Kraglin’s wrist and Yondu lapped it up greedily.

“Hold it,” said Kraglin, and pressed the length of his body up Yondu’s, his knee sliding up the inside of Yondu's thigh.

“What?” Yondu asked with a growl, glaring up at Kraglin like he’d been poked with a needle in the center of his forehead.

“Back down at the bar. I ain’t ever got yer name.”

There was a smile then, sharp and mean, before Yondu raked his fingers across Kraglin’s scalp and yanked his head back. He skipped his other hand across Kraglin’s throat.

“Yondu,” he answered and scraped his finger along Kraglin’s jaw. “But I prefer you just call me ‘sir.’”

They toppled down on the silky golden sheets, Kraglin sliding back across the smooth fabric. Ybarbi threads: glossy, durable and, most important, stain resistant. Nidi knew how to stock up the place. A few pillows littered the mattress and cushioned Kraglin’s head against being tossed down, smashed up by an ornately carved headboard that was rounded out with a few good handholds and slots where someone might be able to add tie restraints. There was a long, pale-colored couch and a closet beside them, covered by scarves. A mirror with a switch to turn off the reflection feature hovered over a bureau littered with too many knickknacks, oils, perfumes, the likes. The bottles were rounded out, long, obvious shapes. Yondu imagined most of those items had been _in_ someone at some time or another and if they hadn’t, wouldn’t it be fun to try.

But between all them glittery items and soft fabrics and rich wood textures was the small glassy black box tucked away on the dresser. Yondu had Kraglin trapped beneath him, straddling him easily while Kraglin bucked up, having a good purchase on the mattress with his boots.  Yondu didn’t so much as moan as he popped the last buttons keeping Kraglin’s shirt in place, tearing the fabric out of his way.

“You gonna turn that off ‘fore we start?” Yondu asked, chucking his chin towards the recording box.

Kraglin, already panting, cocked his head against the pillow before he eyed the piece of hardware with hardly any intrigue. Then a little tug caught his lips and he smirked up at the captain.

“What?” he asked, practically purring. “You the nervous sort?”

“Nervous?” Yondu asked and ground his hips down in a slow circle, enjoying the way Kraglin wriggled beneath him. He still had a hold of Kraglin’s wrist and pushed it up towards the headboard, wrapping their fingers around one of the handholds there. Kraglin understood what he wanted and held on, even after Yondu let him go. Then he leaned down, his nose tickling along Kraglin’s exposed jaw. The Xandarian strained, showing off more of his throat. He had a spectacle of tattoos there and Yondu nipped at one, his mouth curling around the words as he breathed in Kraglin’s salty scent. “I ain’t nervous. Ain’t shy neither. Open them windows and we’ll give everyone below us a show.”

Kraglin laughed a little, low and dark like it wasn’t an easy thing to come to. He rocked his hips up again, pressing himself along the seat of Yondu’s pants in a long deliberate line, tempting him into ignoring the box. Whatever he was packing had nodules ribbing up his shaft and Yondu could feel it writhe, trapped in the confines of his tight pants. All he wanted was to tear at the zipper and set it free, but he wasn’t gonna be seduced into getting blackmailed later, not that he’d ever deny he was at Nidi’s. By all accounts Stakar and his men were sharing the place and they were the only ones who had any high opinion of him. It was simply the principle of it. Just as he said, he weren’t shy and he weren’t the nervous sort. But this pretty little snack of a Xandarian was making his stomach do weird shit. He wanted to smack himself to get rid of his pre-copulatin’ jitters, like he was some flowering virgin on her wedding night. Made him sick.  

Kraglin lifted an eyebrow when he noticed that faraway look in Yondu’s eyes as if to ask _You alright_? It weren’t pity, but damn near close enough, and Yondu grabbed Kraglin’s neck, squeezing it. Kraglin swallowed and Yondu could easily feel his muscles flex and bulge under his fingers.

“I ain’t ever seen eyes like those,” said Kraglin, skipping his vision across Yondu’s face. He smiled, despite the fingers on his neck. “Downright deadly. Sir.”

“Looks like someone tried to carve yours outta yer head,” Yondu answered. “Where you get them scars, huh?”

“You first,” Kraglin spat and reached for the hash marks on Yondu’s face.

“Both hands up,” Yondu barked. Kraglin snaked his free hand up to the headboard and deliberately wrapped it around the carving close to his head, moving slow, like he was being held hostage. Close enough, really, now that Yondu had his fingernails digging into Kraglin’s throat. “You let go, I stick you with my arrow, and not the kind y’all like.”

“Yes sir,” Kraglin slurred and shook the headboard as much as he could to show he meant to keep his word.

Yondu shifted across Kraglin again, leaning down so he could graze his sharp teeth across the Xandarian’s throat. He tongued the crevice of Kraglin’s collarbone, working his way down towards one of Kraglin’s nipples. When he caught it between his teeth, Kraglin’s breath hitched and he shivered out a low, pleasing sound that made Yondu smile despite himself. He glanced up to see Kraglin’s head arcing back into the pillows, his fingers working along the handhold. Yondu flicked his tongue, distracting Kraglin as he reached down for the buckle of his pants. Kraglin gasped again when Yondu palmed Kraglin’s dick, worming his fingers down the shaft as a tantalizing preview. Kraglin bit his lips together and hummed.

“Don’t let go,” Yondu warned, glancing at those fluttering fingers on the headboard. Kraglin grabbed them again and shook it, bouncing the headboard against the wall. His knuckles were white and he punched them back against the wall again to show he meant business. Yondu chuckled as he took Kraglin’s nipple in between his teeth and sucked hard, his stomach dancing at the sounds the man was making beneath him.

Kraglin’s zipper coming undone made Yondu’s guts twist and he could feel his heart racing angrily in his neck. Yondu looked down to see a shiny blue dick slip out of Kraglin’s drawers, the tip beating red as precum beaded along the head. He reached to grab it, surprised how prehensile it was as it jumped in his hand, knocking back into his palm. The nodules bubbled up the shaft in even rings, shiny and beautiful.  Yondu sat up to regard it and his head swam, the room twirling. He touched his temple, rubbing along the gridline of scars.

“Whuh?” he started, the words becoming cottony in his mouth. Kraglin sat up from the mattress to catch him. “Whuhoo…?”

“’M sorry,” Kraglin muttered quickly, grabbing Yondu’s shoulders. “I had to let go of the headboard.”

“Unh?” Yondu asked and tipped over on the mattress, shut out of the world with a black screen and gentle fingers there along the base of his neck, his lips too numb to whistle a single note.


	4. Saved Yer Life and You Saved Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now we have Aleta just coming up with her own hookers, why not? Huh? Why. Not. Also, Half-Nut is just Nuts right now, ain't he cute?

“There we go.” Kraglin helped Yondu down on the mattress, making sure that Big Blue was laying on his side. “Mama always said,” Kraglin sang to himself, checking that Yondu was breathing and that his pulse wasn’t too wild, just like he’d down a million times whenever his parents had passed out aboard their star skipper. It just came naturally, it seemed, this caretaker stuff. Disgusting. His expression soured as he reached down to zip up his pants, redoing his belt buckle. Sure he ached, but he bit his lip and went on with it. Something to think about later once he was aboard a proper ship and off this shit hole rock.

Kraglin had been stuck on the tropical planet for too long, creeping up on the anniversary of his first job with Harker. To say he was trapped was to say he didn’t have a ship to get out. They were tough to come by and impossible to purchase without credit. Kraglin, who now had a name on a very specific list available at the only bank in town—or planet, honestly, it was pretty small and nobody else was doling out deals on units. It was taking much longer than he anticipated to work up enough units to purchase something reliable enough to get him out of the system. Something would escape Harker’s view. So, most of his time was spent serving at Nidi’s brothel, the biggest business this side of the main island. There were a few more islands spread out in the crystal waters, but they had locals and such and Kraglin decided he was going to the only place Harker and is goons _didn’t_ go, simply because they were too busy running their so-called “bank.” Nidi’s Brothel sent over a few escorts whenever they were called up to keep Harker happy. Happy Harker meant happy customers meant happy patrons.

“How many units we got?” asked Kraglin, reaching into Yondu’s pockets. He skipped across the belts at his waist and spotted an extra holster. There was a single arrow inside. Not much to look at and not very useful without the weapon to fire it. Kraglin scoffed and recalled the comment Yondu had made about sticking him with said arrow. Was he just gonna grab it and stab it into his throat or what?

“Well, it could be valuable, you know?” he could hear his mother say, cooing to his father as they giggled to themselves. “You never know the value of something until you have it.”

“Just like how I have you?” he would ask and squeeze her in next to him. The two would regard each other, eyes half-lidded, lips clamped between teeth, before they melted into a long, needy kiss, hands grappling at clothing before they remembered they were out on a mission or trying to eye a potential target and would get back to whatever latest theft had their attention. The two loved each other. They loved each other with the same fire as the central suns, burning up their lives. They couldn’t be far apart no matter what they needed, and their fingers would linger at each other’s shoulders or belts. He had learned early on what passion was, and caught his parents in the middle of it whenever he woke up aboard their stolen star skipper from some forgotten nightmare.

That passion didn’t limit itself to lust neither. The two were famously good at stealing things, from unattended units to space ships to lovers to drink to anything that was an easy distraction. They shared it all with each other, and always seemed surprised whenever Kraglin popped his head up as a reminder of happened when a man loved a woman and so on and so forth. But they made certain his hands were quick. He’d had to steal most of his meals without either of them catching on. He’d watch them flirt and drink and feed fruits to each other as they grappled with their clothes and waited until they were passed out before he flew the star skipper to another planet, leaving behind whatever threat they’d inadvertently created in their wake. He munched on remains, squirreled away some savings, the likes. Kraglin learned his little lessons. Steal. Fly. And fuck love.

Kraglin left the arrow. Maybe it was valuable, but Yondu seemed partial to it and not that Kraglin was partial to Yondu himself, but he was going to wake with a hell of a headache and he needed the Centaurian feeling a little charitable. A little.

There were a few extra units on hand, which Kraglin helped himself to out of habit before he checked the blaster and removed any extra charges Yondu might have on hand. Then he went out of the room to look for a proper drink and something salty to satiate the captain when he came to. He was gonna need it. Kraglin locked the room on his way out, just in case.

The halls stretched out in a winding maze on the top levels of Nidi’s brothel. Kraglin found the quickest route that would take him to a back entrance. He ignored most of the sounds leaking through the walls, a familiar orchestra that barely stirred anything in him anymore, more of a constant buzz at the peripherals. He slid past a friendly face, one of the Luphomoid girls catching a smoke break before she went in to accept client requests.

“Hey Kraglin,” she said and waved a fan of smoke in front of her face.

“Hey Netrina,” he answered. “You want anything from the market?”

“Snag me one of Beso’s cream pops.”

“You got it,” he answered with a salute.

Nobody would notice he wasn’t tending bar. There were three others who would take over and the LoveBots were programmed to fill a space as needed. Netrina was living day-to-day, same as the others, and she’d never notice anything adrift if Kraglin stepped out into the street never to return. It was the brilliance of the job. Even better that there was, in fact, no Nidi to report to. She was but a name and an idea concocted by the A’askavarian partners who had opened up the chain and were living it up in a luxury apartment somewhere on Cortex. As long as units made their way in their bank accounts, they had no need to send enforcers to that particular brothel. It was a perfect place to lay low, especially when you had no other means to speak of.

Kraglin skipped into the street, momentarily distracted by a fellow with blue skin. His mind wandered back up to Yondu. Yondu had been fun to flirt with, but it was an ends to a means. Sleeping with him would have been a treat. A real treat, honestly. There was a fire below his belt at the thought of it, recalling Yondu’s hands, his tongue, his smell. Made Kraglin swallow a second as his head spun.

But, hell, a treat can also be a silly cream pop made to look like the moon up above them in all its icy swirling glory. Kraglin, watching his parents fawn over each other with reckless abandon and slip into any vice that caught their fancy, didn’t need any of that love nonsense. He wasn’t soft or anything. Never! Fact was, he was banking on that poor blue sucker to catch feelings himself. Kraglin didn’t get feelings. He didn’t have time to feel. He didn’t care and he definitely didn’t pause a moment, a couple of crushed seds palmed in his hand, lingering over the glass before he reminded himself he was doing this to get off planet. He was using Yondu to leave. He didn’t need to see where the night would go, he didn’t wonder what sort’ve fun they might get to, or what’d it feel like to rut till they were both sore. Wasn’t thinking about it at all! He was just doing this job. Yep. Kraglin definitely drugged Yondu, just like he’d planned. Now he just had to get one of those Harker thugs to come and chase him.

Harker Vandalor was a Ravager impersonator at best, a mercenary with his own crew who didn’t follow anything such as codes or rules or laws or any of those minor details. He picked men that would serve him well and wasn’t afraid to lose them if the ends justified the means. He was the last person Kraglin’s parents had managed to cross before they found themselves at the bottom of a mine shaft on a Kree terraformed resource planet. Kraglin was a pup then, cutting his teeth in the criminal ring when he stole a few valuables off of Harker’s target. Handing them over had probably saved his life. Stealing from Harker again just put him back on the radar and, as a warning, he had completely totaled Kraglin’s cheap star skipper ship as they crashed into Nidi’s planet. Luckily, all those years of piloting for his parents had taught him how to maneuver out of a crash and it saved him from an impromptu funeral pyre. Then it was only a matter of time of picking anyone’s pockets until he had enough units scraped together to get back off planet. Hard work trying to buy a ship without credit. Cause credit meant going through the only damn bank on the planet, and that just wasn’t gonna happen. Stay off Harker’s radar. Stay alive.

Kraglin stopped by Beso’s stall, a mortared hut with a window and purplish smoke rippling out of a thin chimney. Beso greeted Kraglin with a gruff grunt and asked for a couple of units by flapping a huge two-fingered fist. The cream pop’s wrapper crinkled in Kraglin’s hand and made his skin prickle from the cold. He licked at the swirled concoction and savored the almost spicy mint aftertaste, a favorite of his. He only felt a little bad that Netrina even reminded him they existed. She could get her own when she was done with her shift if she really wanted it.

The town started to build up on itself as it became the capital. Buildings were tripping over themselves, taller and more ornate, and soon Kraglin was shoving his way around throngs of people. It was nothing like Xandar to be sure, but it was a metropolis in its own right. Plenty of transports skipped around him or above him or even below him in the translucent tunnels under the soil. The heat was almost unbearable and Kraglin was ever more relieved to have Beso’s treat to keep him cool. He lapped it lazily and made his way towards the Vandalor Trust.

Something blinked on Kraglin’s wrist. He twisted the band around and saw a few triangles skitter across the view, blinking red. He had just about three cycles before the drug wore off. Enough time to get to Harker’s bank, catch the eye of one of his thugs, and race back to the brothel. It was a stupid plan, but he was desperate and he figured he was quick enough to outrun them this long. If he could just get one into the brothel, he could kill them when Yondu was waking up and claim he’d just saved his life. Figured the Ravager would feel indebted enough that he might be able to join up with the crew. Trade one hardass thief captain for another. Seemed to be a step up, far as he could tell with the other Ravagers coming into the brothel. They had the Code.

“Easy as greenberry pie,” said Kraglin, smiling at the cream pop.

The bank loomed up ahead of him. It was perhaps twenty stories, but an opulent building in a gold-colored marble with tubes leading to the underground passageways in every direction, like it was the heart of the planet. Nidi’s owners might own the soil, but they paid it to Harker’s bank. Vandalor didn’t spend so much time at the bank itself. He was busy out there taking whatever he pleased from the stars, but damn if his presence wasn’t felt. Kraglin swallowed uncomfortably and ditched the rest of his cream pop, deciding he’d suffer the heat instead of an upset stomach and literal sticky fingers.

There was a main entrance, a huge port with a heavily carved archway gilded in precious metals, begging visitors into its maw. Kraglin skirted around to a side entrance, a small unassuming door for most of the employees and servicemen. He slipped in after a mild-mannered looking guy with spectacles and suspenders. Not the usual muscle head that flew on Harker’s crew. Probably an actual banker or accountant. Somebody to keep the numbers in Vandalor’s favor. The doorway clapped shut behind him and Kraglin was in the shadows quick as you like, taking a familiar route over to the security office. He checked his wrist and figured it was either Harker’s cousin Aplix or that green fella Div on detail. Kraglin curled his hand behind his back, praying to whatever was listening it was Aplix. That man was dumb as mundy dung and slow to boot.

The lights blinked again on his wrist, subtle reminders of what he had to get back to. Kraglin rolled down his sleeve and sauntered along, ready to get to work.

A cold brisk breeze slipped down the hallway the closer Kraglin got to the security office. He was glad for the extra shirt he’d managed to pilfer from one of the performer’s closets on his way out, something almost looking sturdy enough to take a beating, if not a bit ostentatious with the metal clasps that went across his chest. He didn’t dare clear his throat as he slipped up to the dark doorway and pushed himself up on his tip toes to get a peek through the tiny rectangular safety glass at the very top. He saw a flicker inside and dropped down to the ground, holding his chest as he looked for somewhere to hide. The door banged open and the sharp green claw of Div sliced through the air, an accusatory finger pointed at Kraglin cowering low in the hallway.

“I thought I smelled a bilge rat,” said Div, his crooked smile tightening around the ugly scars across his cheek.

“Shit.” Kraglin winced as Div stepped out into the hallway, his tail swishing back behind him and closing the security door with a bang.

““You got a lotta nerve, Obfonteri.”

“Not a lotta brains yadda yadda, I know,” said Kraglin, straightening his spine as he did the same to the hem of his outfit. “Guessin’ things haven’t blown over then, eh, Div?”

“Orders are dead or alive on yer scrawny ass. But it’s been dull around here. Give you a sporting chance if you make it fun for me.”

“Just cause I work at Nidi’s doesn’t mean—”

“Ah ah,” said Div and wagged his finger. The claw was nearly the length of Kraglin’s face and it’d slice him up like a dream. “Don’t flap that mouth. Give you t’ the count of three.”

“Generous today,” said Kraglin. “You even know how to count that high?”

Div wrapped his fist up and tightened his ugly grin again. His yellow eyes narrowed.  There was a shiny spray from his nostrils as he snorted out something close to a laugh.

“Three.”

Kraglin didn’t so much as run as he clawed through the air, urging himself to slip through time itself and escape the building as much a shadow as he had entered. Div was right on his heels, and he could feel the heavy meaty aroma of rotting stink beat down on his neck. The brothel itself was clear across town, but all Kraglin had to do was get to that exit door and zip into the crowds. He was close. He was so, so close.

*

Headaches come with anything; hangovers, bar brawls, dehydration, perhaps mild torture, whatever. Headaches don’t mean shit, just an annoying thing tapping away at the brain and stabbing at the back of the eyes. They’re no way to determine what the seven hells happened.

No, but a certain taste in the back of the throat? A powerful need for something salty to balance out that slow cramping in his limbs? It’d been a long time since he’d been tranq’d by saami seds. Amateur move against his kind, since they had a tendency to wear off sooner than most. Didn’t mean he didn’t feel like nuked shit. Yondu groaned against it and sat up from the lonely bed, holding his hands to his temples.

“Guurgh.” Yondu massaged his eyeballs some and looked around for a telltale cup, until he remembered he’d smashed it before he jumped that Kraglin fella. Yondu winced at the memory. He imagined the Ogords standing at the entryway, laughing down at their little protégé.

“That’s why you always get the bots,” Stakar would say with a dark rumble of laughter.

“Thought we taught you to always carry a flask and don’t take anything you didn’t pour yourself,” Aleta would say beside him, arms crossed, that standard lopsided smirk plastered on her face.

Yondu groaned louder, if only to drown out his imaginary mentors, and forced himself to his feet. He doubled over instantly and heaved a few times before he got himself standing sturdy. He did a quick pat-down and checked his weapons. A few units gone. Blaster gone. But the arrow as still in its holster. If Kraglin was trying to rob him, the idiot left him with his best weapon. Yondu almost smiled at that before he sat back on the mattress and held his head. Needed a moment to catch his breath. Then he’d get up and go hunting for that fuckin’ sniveling little Xandarian who thought he could knock out Yondu Udonta, Captain of the Eclector and Seriously Pissed Off Bastard.

There wasn’t much in way of food in the actual room. Drinks aplenty, all of them alcoholic in nature, and while his throat was constricted, he didn’t trust Kraglin hadn’t dosed every drink in Nidi’s. Yondu groaned uncomfortably and cleared his throat. It was like working sand around a wet cement ball socked down his windpipe. He slapped his knees and forced himself to stand again. Be on his feet. That’s the best he could do just then.

The ground tilted a few times beneath him, but Yondu didn’t look so out of place with any of the other inebriated patrons. He stumbled back down the hallway, looking through fuzzy eyes for the stairs. A bunch of his boys were sowing their seeds with the other LoveBots and Yondu tilted into the wall, pressing his forehead against the cool plaster. He thought he could hear a chicken crow of someone to a room across from him. Thought he recognized the person making the sound.

“Where’s m’ fuckin’ _crew_?” Yondu shouted and slammed his fist against a nearby door. Whoever was inside didn’t so much as slow down, good for them. Yondu staggered a little further down and shouted again, “Ravagers!”

There were a few rallying cries beneath him, but nobody who thought to come looking for the man who was making all that racket. Made sense. They were up in the “sleeping” quarters and, in any other instance, Yondu would put his Yaka arrow through any idjit who disturbed him. Something curdled up in his stomach again as he wondered how best to get down the stairs.

“Did you have too much to drink again, sir?”

“Seven hells,” Yondu said behind his eyelids and blinked slowly to get a young half-spaced nut job into focus. “Where’s any o’ yer better halves?”

“Dunno,” Nuts answered, skipping down the hallway with his suit half done up and long black streaks painted down his cheeks. “You got into something, didn’t you?”

Nuts was a worm barely old enough to hold a knife, let along walk around a certified brothel. He’d come on with a few of the other crew, the sort who didn’t have a reputable past to speak of and didn’t give a history of their young ward. They all knew he was off. Far as they could tell, someone had done something to his brain and he had a metal plate under his skin along half of his skull. He grinned and his eyes bugged out too far, but he was always willing to do whatever the crew needed, so Yondu made room for him where he could. His unstable tendencies lent him the name quite naturally, and he took it without asking.

“Someone tried to do me wrong,” Yondu said, nodding as he held onto the wall with one arm and his stomach with the other.

“Didn’t account for biology then, hey?” Nuts asked. His nose was twitching from side to side and he clapped his teeth shut, holding back his usual howling laughter. Good for him to attempt to put on a _semblance_ of decorum. “We need to gut someone, sir? Take a tongue? A few digits?”

“Only thing I need _you_ to do is go fetch Tullk.”

“Oh Tullk? Oh Tullk. Oh Tullk is, uh…?” Nuts held up his index finger and slowly started sliding it towards a “v” shape of his other hand. “….FFFFucking, sir, so. Whoop.” Nuts docked his index in between the crevice of his other hand and quickly rubbed them together before he shrugged, suddenly distracted by something on the ceiling.

Yondu grimaced, trying to find some spec of patience he had left over to convince Nuts to do what needed to be done. He’d pay to have someone else with him then, hells, even Gef was a big enough fellow who could just help carry him downstairs, but he figured he’d snap Nuts like a twig if he tried.

“Give us yer blaster,” Yondu said instead. Nuts popped his lips together and turned a crooked grin on his captain, humming a question. Yondu reached out and said again, “Give us yer blaster. Mine got stolen while I was out.”

“Oh, right, right, oh, of course, right,” said Nuts and patted his chest, his stomach, his thighs, and turned in a circle looking for anything that might be belted to his backside. “Well, y’see, uh, they took mine, sir, and so I’ll have to go back t’you on that whenever I am allowed to get it?”

“Who took it?”

“Oh, others. They said I could have it back when we went back to the ship? Said I’d pro’lly just blow my head off and it was ‘safer’ this way, which is stupid, sir, because I can still blow my head off up in the void if I _really_ wanted to.”

“Do you?” Yondu asked, half-skeptical as he leaned hard on the wall.

“No. Well? No. No. No, not really, I guess. No.”

Yondu waived Nuts’ soft ramble out of his ears and looked up and down the hallway. There weren’t anybody else coming out to join them and nobody stomping up the stairs.  He just had to get downstairs. If anything, he could fall down them and worry about the aftermath. Yondu pushed himself up again and wandered away, holding his stomach as he did.

“Sir?”

Nuts quickly skipped up next to him again, not lending a hand or anything, but staying close by all the same. The twerp barely came up to his chest. Stakar might have a rule about dealing with kids, but he never said shit about bringing ‘em onboard and putting them to work, long as no units exchanged anybody’s hands. Wasn’t like they _stole_ the brat. And if Nuts’ buddies did actually steal him from wherever it was he’d been brought up, maybe it was better anyhow. He wasn’t being used as an experiment aboard the Eclector. That seemed like a charitable thing they were doing, keeping Nuts around. Justified it in his head and all.

“D’ya know who did it?” asked Nuts, keeping an uneven step beside him. “You got a name? A face? A, uh, thing? Warrant?”

“You wanna know if I already put a bounty out on the bastard who done this t’ me?” Yondu asked, rolling his eyes and immediately regretting it. “Son, I barely got my britches back on. Can ya just…stop. Fer a second?”

Nuts froze, nodding a quick beat to himself, before he came back up to Yondu’s side.

“Alright, now what?” asked Nuts.

“Oh, strike me dead,” Yondu muttered to himself.

“Sir?”

“Nothing! Just—”

“Is that little Udonta?”

“Oh, shit.”

Yondu closed his eyes again and nearly collapsed in the hall right then and there. If he could, he would have melted into the floor, disappearing in the muck and brine and becoming one with the soil. But he didn’t. He didn’t so much as shiver.

“By the stars.” Aleta thumped down the hallway with a woman dangling on her arm, giggling pleasantly at the new company. There was LoveBot waiting nearby, smiling empty at the two of them. Despite his earlier wishes, Yondu felt steamrolled seeing Aleta there. “What you got yourself into this time, Blue Bells?”

“Nothin’, I swear,” Yondu answered out of impulse and shoved himself off the wall, only to wheel his arms to catch his balance and hold his stomach together. Aleta eyed him suspiciously before she turned her scowl down on little Nuts. “Runts with me, too, so.”

“What happened?” Aleta asked more insistently. She dropped the escort’s arm and grabbed Yondu, holding his face between both hands. Yondu flinched, but she didn’t let him squirm away. “I can smell it on you. Someone go and try to poison my very favorite Blue?”

“Yeah, but only a little,” he answered and finally jerked his face away. _Seven hells, not in front of the kid, at least._ “I’m off to find ‘im so I can skin ‘im myself.”

“Skinning,” said Aleta and nodded, biting her lip. Then she flashed those dark bruised eyes up at him and smiled. “You want help?”

“No. I got this.” Aleta deflated, looking down the hallway again in case something new would come to catch her fancy. Yondu decided to test the waters some. “Where’s yer husband about anyhow?”

“Finishing a deal with that Harker fellow in town,” said Aleta, slipping her hand back around the escort’s waist. “Let him worry about numbers and the likes. I’ve gotta go wet my appetite.”

Yondu bowed to Aleta, conceding the hallway to her as she slapped her hand on the escort’s backside, grabbing it firmly and giving it a shake. She leaned back towards Yondu and whispered loudly, “You want help skinning a fella, don’t forget to call.”

“Wouldn’t dream of denying you,” Yondu answered and thumped his chest in the Ravager salute. Nuts, still standing all gawp-eyed next to him, quickly followed with the same two-thump salute. Then he turned back on Yondu, waiting orders. “Don’t stare, boy.”

“I wasn’t,” Nuts answered, eyes unblinking as he looked up at his captain.

Yondu swallowed his remark and shoved off again towards the stairwell. He’d figure his way down the stairs anyhow, and he was tired of putting it off. Nuts trailed behind him.

*

The familiar walls to the brothel that had been like a sanctuary this past year loomed up out of the damp vegetation. Kraglin slipped through the crowds easier than the frothy berserker rampaging behind him, but he only just got into Nidi’s by the skin of his teeth. Netrina wasn’t loafing around out back, thank the stars, and most of the patrons were either out on the patio, up in the rooms, or spilling drinks inside. The backdoor was shut, but Kraglin kicked it open with a bang, delighted he didn’t have to worry about picking the lock like he had done hundreds of times in the past.

There was a short, stumpy-legged cook heading towards the back for a smoke who eyed Kraglin’s wild expression and tipped his head, stepping back between a set of steel doors without a word. Kraglin didn’t know his name, but he appreciated the aptitude the man had for staying out of danger. Maybe it was something Kraglin could use himself; he wasn’t one to say otherwise, but he tapped his wristwatch and checked the timer just as Div tore out the backdoor and rushed inside.

“Cheap, Obfonteri,” Div roared, clattering across the floor now on all fours.

“Put it on my tab, Div,” Kraglin shouted back before he lurched towards the stairs, just barely missing a talon raking down his back.

They still had too much time before Kraglin’s mark was supposed to wake up. He didn’t think he’d be able to stall, but if they got up to the room and Kraglin managed to kill Div, he’d have the body all ready before Yondu woke up. When he glanced back over his shoulder and saw Div snarling, eyes boiled with rage, he wondered exactly how he’d even manage to kill the monster.

Brawls and the likes weren’t uncommon at Nidi’s. Murderous rage less so, but people who were high, drunk, horny, or a combination of the three didn’t think straight. The clients were all mean a-holes in their own rights and likely didn’t back down, so Nidi’s had a few protocols in place when said murderous rampages started up. The first were drones sent out to subdue the subjects, a couple of them already flying over Div’s head as he stormed the foyer that led to the main staircase. Kraglin ducked under the metal machinery zooming on Div and started up the stairs just as he heard a loud metal scream and the quick destruction of Nidi’s drones soon after.

“Come on,” Kraglin moaned, punching a panel to his right to start closing off the stairwell. The stairs themselves retracted and a red neon sign hung over it stating they were out of use, but Div had a long reach, and he stabbed his hands into the wall, climbing up without any problem. “Come on!” Kraglin yelled again and spun into a wall of blue skin and red leather.

At first, Kraglin assumed he was meeting a muscly pillar and his brain didn’t register who the man was. He recognized the Ravager garb and the red implant across the top of his skull, but the snarling face and bloody eyes didn’t click in his brain. Not until he heard a whistle crack the air and he managed to get out, “How’re you—?”

“You fuckin’ dosed me with fuckin’ seds like a fuckin’—”

But Div interrupted the tongue lashing with a tremulous roar, his scaly body taking up the only exit they had. He snapped his crooked jaw and slouched low so his teeth were at eye-level. Drool spilled down his rubbery lips as he raked his talons through the walls. Kraglin flinched at the sound of nails on metal even as he flinched at the copious amount of damage to Nidi’s place. Not that he was sentimental about it, but he did feel he was certainly responsible for this mess and a part of him worried about paying for the damages before he was able to leave, if he even survived that long.

“End of the line, Obfonteri,” said Div.

Yondu, who was hovering near the wall looking damn sorry for himself, shoved himself upright and stood next to Kraglin, a hand on his shoulder as he pinched those long dark nails into Kraglin’s skin.

“Wait a minute,” said Yondu, and pushed Kraglin behind him. There was a kid waiting in the hallway too, looking around like he was only half-seeing everything, a little twitchy smile popping up on his face. “You wanna murder this Xandarian sonovabitch, yer gonna have to go through me.”

“Umm,” started Kraglin, eyebrow quirked as he looked between Yondu and Div. “I didn’t think you—”

“Shut it,” Yondu snapped. “I’m gonna kill you myself, I swear. Don’t think this is me rescuing you.”

“You ain’t rescuin’ me,” Kraglin said with a scoff before he added a sarcastic, “ _sir_.”

“You got this ugly bastard breathing down yer neck, ready to skin ya, and you don’t think you need rescuing?”

“No,” said Kraglin. He put his hands on his hips, half-reaching for the blaster he’d taken off Yondu earlier. “Fact was I’m here to rescue _you_.”

“Bullshit,” Yondu answered. “You drugged me. Knocked me out before we even got to the fun stuff.”

“I didn’t do that!” Kraglin yelled, even though he very obviously did. Now he did have the blaster in his hand and leveled it around Yondu, sights set to the expected target.

“You lie to me again, I’ll put this arrow through yer skull.”

“What arrow?”

The arrow Kraglin had spotted in the fancy leather holster was suddenly hovering in the air, pulsing a red light as a red tail sprinkled in the afterglow behind it. Kraglin took a step back, mesmerized by the floating device, wondering how in the hell it was doing that. He shook his head and was about to open his mouth when Div decided he was tired of watching these two idiots argue amongst themselves. He’d come all this way and was keen on ripping Kraglin’s organs out of his stomach to devour them before the life left his eyes. He stomped so hard the floor shook and they each stumbled slightly as Div rocketed down the hallway. Kraglin leapt around Yondu before Div had a chance to reach them and opened fire. The blaster shot off white-hot plasma rounds, slicing through Div’s ugly face and punching holes through his chest. But it was the crack of a whistle and that magic arrow that speared through Div’s eyes, threading clean through his skull, that finally put Div out of his misery. Div dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

Kraglin spun again in time to see the arrow hovering over his chest. He raised his hands and dropped the weapon. The blaster was hot anyways and smoked on the ground. He kicked it away to show he seriously didn’t mean any harm. Yondu pursed his lips and whistled again. The arrow, which he apparently controlled that way, sparked and spun and drilled closer, boring a hole in Kraglin’s shirt. He winced but didn’t jerk away for fear that Yondu would spear him.

“I didn’t mean anything,” said Kraglin softly, eyes shut as he endured the slow stabbing above his breastbone. “I swear, I weren’t ever gonna kill you.”

“I know,” Yondu said, stepping closer. “I made damn sure of that, didn’t I?”

“No, I mean. I just—”

“What the Seven Hells we got goin’ on up here?” Stakar Ogord ran up the stairway with half his Ravagers riding in tow. The legendary Starhawk was practically glowing and Kraglin felt himself shrink back from the energy, only to find the kid with half his head shaved by his side, holding him by the elbow. Kraglin tried to shake himself free but the kid didn’t budge, didn’t let him run, didn’t let him get anywhere. It didn’t matter. Ogord’s crew was filling in around them. Kraglin didn’t know many, but he had seen Yondu talk to the Pluvion beforehand. Martinex stood to the right of Stakar, the air misted with cold. “Yondu? You start explaining what’s going on here before I lose my damn patience.”

“I got this handled,” Yondu started. Kraglin noticed the arrow had zipped back to him and he was already sliding it safely back in its holster. “Seems we had a disagreement and I took care of it.”

“Disagreement. Son, you kill every man you have a disagreement with, we’ll be out of any sentient lifeform by the end of the solar cycle.” Stakar stood a beat before he threw his head back and laughed. The other Ravagers joined in, but Yondu didn’t crack a smile and Kraglin didn’t think he was going to be let go so easily. “Oh, it’s good to see you, Yondu. I heard what happened with the last crew.” Yondu sneered and he twisted away only for Stakar to grab his shoulder and spin him towards him, embracing the young Centaurian. “It’s good to see you, son.”

Yondu accepted the embrace, stiff but not fighting to escape. Stakar clapped him on the back and the others cheered, some of them reaching around and putting a hand on Yondu’s shoulder. It seemed somewhat of a celebration, somewhat of a commiseration, all of them lending their support and in the middle of the hubbub, Kraglin tried to sneak away again. He tip-toed backwards only for the squirt next to him to yank his arm up like a trophy.

“What about this one, sir?” the kid asked, clamped onto Kraglin like a vice.

They each turned and looked over at Kraglin, who straightened immediately at their gaze. This was it. Yondu Udonta was in with _The_ Starhawk and there weren’t any way in the universe he was going to be able to get on a ship with them now. Hell, he’d probably be killed before they left Nidi’s. Kraglin’s heart beat hard in his throat, but he just stood firm, accepting what was to come. He was tired of running anyhow.

“Who’re you?” Stakar asked, his voice rumbling out like thunder.

“That sonovabitch and I also have a disagreement,” Yondu said, stepping up beside Stakar.

“Disagreement,” Stakar said with a small chuckle. “Looked to me like he was trying to save your life.”

“Sure,” said Yondu, pursing his lips. Kraglin could almost see the arrow’s tip begin to glow that distinctive red in his holster. The burn on his chest still hurt, but he didn’t dare rub it to relieve some of the pain. “After he went and drugged me.”

“Drugged you?” Stakar looked between Kraglin and Yondu, eyebrows hooked down in displeasure. “You drugged my man Udonta here?”

“Well, I…I mean….” Kraglin looked around at all the fierce faces, at the legendary Starhawk, and at Yondu Udonta himself, who was mean, who scowled, who flirted with him not a few hours ago, who looked past his dirty features and his scars and all and who wanted him, who wanted him and who had every right to destroy him now. Stupid. Rash. Pathetic. Kraglin took a deep breath and closed his eyes before he relented. “Yeah. Yes. I did.”

There was a blaster at his temple before he could finish his words. He heard yelling, and people started jostling to get a hold of him, but it was Yondu who shouted above them.

“Hold it,” he said, and they stopped. The barrel was still pressed tight to his skull, but at least they didn’t fire. That was something.

“What you got in mind, son?” asked Stakar. Kraglin peeled his eyes open to see the Starhawk smiling. Half his face didn’t work so well, but it was still clearly a smile, malicious and mean, sure, but there.

“I wanna know something,” said Yondu, stepping up so he was practically nose to nose with Kraglin. The Ravagers had him pinned in place so he couldn’t run, but he didn’t want to anyhow. “Why’d you do it?”

They shook him like he wasn’t planning on answering, but soon as he could get the words out he said, “I was just trying to save yer life.”

“By what? By getting’ us killed? That aint’ it,” said Yondu. Kraglin stared him down, saying nothing aloud. But the look on his face must have shown it all. Yondu squinted, read it all there, and nodded. “Just what I thought.”

Kraglin was jostled about some more, the shouting building as Yondu and Stakar discussed whatever fate they deemed appropriate for him. _This is fair_ , he decided. _This is right._ _You ain’t ever done anything right with yer life, you might as well get chummed by a Ravager crew. Done yer parents proud, eh, Kraglin?_

But the shoving stopped again as Stakar shouted his affirmations and told everyone to go downstairs for drinks. They roared their approval, taking off, a few pushing Kraglin to the side, but doing no other harm besides that. Soon they had all trickled off and they only left Yondu and the half-crazy brat.

“What…what’s going on?” he started.

“Yer coming with me,” Yondu answered with a snarl. “Save yer life. Figure I’d make it _even_.”

“What? Why?!”

Yondu shrugged and hooked his hand over his shoulder, leading them down to the stairwell that Div had torn up not moments ago. The bots had already replaced most of the panels on the wall and the stairs had been reactivated. Downstairs, there was music and dancing and laughter, as though nothing had changed. They got to the landing before Yondu hooked Kraglin by the scruff of his neck, drawing him in close enough so he could whisper into his ear.

“You pull something like that again, I’ll gut you. You hear me?”

Kraglin nodded, but it wasn’t enough as Yondu shook him roughly. Eventually, he answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

Yondu let him go before he stumbled down the stairs. Kraglin, who realized he had gotten what he wanted, too stunned to be left alive after the stupid shit he’d pulled, went after him.


	5. Make Yerself Useful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get something close to actual honest-to-god work done on the Eclector. She's a pile of scrap anyhow!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning, Nuts does get cut up in this one, so.

Of course it was Horuz who was slapped with the duty of wrangling up the new crew, administering to them the Code, and assigning their bunks as the only interim First Mate Yondu could convince to take the position. He rounded up the ugly ducklings best as he could, but he couldn’t go two steps without cursing out something while he done it.

“I’m putting you lot in here,” Horuz said, motioning to a short doorway stamped into one of the Eclector’s walls. “Got plenty of beds available. Fight amongst yerselves; see if I care.”

The other thieves who had been drudged up around Nidi’s and in a few joints in the system surrounding Nidi’s planet all shoved into the room, claiming any cot they saw and drawing knives on each other. Kraglin stood back, watching the fray unfold. He tugged at the collar of his new uniform. The jumpsuit hugged a little too snugly in places, but he had room to fill out around his midsection. The terrifying Tailor—half-surgeon, half-clothier with too many stitches up his body like it were a fashion statement—laughed at how scrawny their new recruit was and slapped him into the uniform without much asking. He was mildly impressed with the numerous tattoos skittering across Kraglin’s body and opted to show off the ink on his own chest, which was almost a perfect replica of DuVoign’s _Estre In the Strukcharti Arraign_ , the Strukcharti portrait painter famous in the Struk system. The artist who had done the Tailor’s ink had really gotten the delicate shine on Estre’s undulating mouth flaps just so. Most of the other details were obscured by scars from old stitches, but the outline was true.

“Why ain’t you claimed a bed?” the gruff-looking Xandarian asked, sneaking up on Kraglin as he stood outside the hole.

Kraglin didn’t even jump, just squeezed his elbows in tighter and looked down at Horuz.

“I’ll take one when I need it,” Kraglin answered. But Horuz just laughed, shook his head and asked if Kraglin had any assignments yet. “None that I know of, sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me,” Horuz said. “Save that for the captain. Listen, I gotta get back to the engine rooms. We’re still patching some of the thrusters on portside near our backup generators. Wanna make sure that spill hasn’t leaked in and ruined the equipment yet. Saddle up, boy. You look like you’ll fit between the hydraulics.”

“I don’t have much experience with engines,” Kraglin answered, but followed anyways.

“That’s fine. Learn,” Horuz answered, leading them down past the hangar bay.

The hangar bay was full of M-ships, hundreds of them docked safely in the belly of the Eclector. Kraglin dipped under the wing of one and touched her hull reverently, tracing out the call sign on one of her panels. They were all beautiful.

“You can buy one once you’ve earned enough from yer missions,” Horuz said lazily over his shoulder.

“We got any big missions coming up?” Kraglin asked absently, his neck craned up towards the ship. What he wouldn’t give to pilot one of them beauties.

“Big?” Horuz asked and huffed out another wheezy laugh. “Talk to the captain if’n you got any ideas.”

Kraglin didn’t. He’d been basically marooned long enough on Nidi’s planet that he didn’t know much about what was going on out in the void, at least in ways of big scores and the likes. He’d stayed away from Harker’s crew enough that he hadn’t picked up anything to take from them. The only lead he had was an old story about someone paying for a special delivery, had a whole roster to pick up and that the payouts were extraordinary. Had to be to go with the extraordinary pick up. Rumors it was trafficking, which seemed the only likely answer to something that big. Not that Kraglin had the stomach for straight-up slavery, but he was interested to see what that intel might bring him.

Fact was, he figured he owed Yondu. Big time. The whole thing back in the brothel didn’t sit right with him. Yeah, he’d absolutely drugged the blue bastard, _and_ he’d brought in a thug who could’ve easily kill them both, claiming it was all to save his life. Which was all…so stupid, in hindsight. Desperation to get off that damn planet really drove him to the edge. But Yondu had seen through it instantly. So why did he take him aboard his ship? It’s what Kraglin wanted, absolutely, it was his end goal. But it came too easily, and he wasn’t sure why. Felt like he’d been conscripted again, like he was back under Harker, just with a bigger crew. Maybe he’d have to work to buy one of them M-ships off Yondu and then he’d fly on outta here and be free. Honest and truly free.

“Listen, you gonna just stand there and gawp or are ye gonna help with the engines like I asked?” Horuz barked from across the hangar bay. Kraglin ducked under the ship and ran after, making his excuses as he fell in line.

*

Solar cycles came and went, signified with shift changes and artificial light dimmers in the crews quarters. Kraglin didn’t get blown up in the engines, and he was mighty useful at getting into things that were harder for others. They had a few beanpole types aboard, just like that crazy Nuts kid, but nobody could trust Nuts not to blow up the ship while he was crawling through the vents. They did the next best thing and shoved Kraglin up there whenever there was a blockage or a dangerous leak. It seemed the Eclector was old, much older than her crew, and she needed a lot of patch jobs. She was coming together beautiful though, they had to concede that. Horuz knew how to fix anything and took lead on getting the ship in order.

There weren’t much work needed for big missions that month. Some of the crew went off to do trades, talk up clients, what have you. There were a few jewel heists and a bounty picked up by Tullk. Nobody in particular came looking for him, and Kraglin figured he’d found his place on the ship, even if it was just doing all the engine work with Horuz or fighting with the new recruits like Nuts and his odd gang. Life became routine, as routine as Ravager life could be.

And it was so.

Damn.

Boring.

“What’re we go today?” Kraglin asked, meeting Horuz outside the mess hall. He’d crushed some of that habanof root in with his morning meal, hoping to get a little glimmer of a jolt through his system. The drudgery was making him feel like shit.

“Don’t look so pleased with yerself,” Horuz ordered as he shoved a bucket into Kraglin’s stringy arms.

“What the…?”

“Yeah. Gonna be fun today. C’mon,” said Horuz, rounding up a few of the other low level crew who went after Horuz like he was all their teat-swinging mama.

The hatch over the fourth deck showers was busted and there was a nasty mold what decided to take hold in the pipes above it. The whole thing was shut down, a misty hot mess when Horuz and his accidental custodial crew came upon it. Kraglin was already half-undressed with his jumpsuit tied around his waist, scrubbing at the grates in the ceiling to get to the mess up there above them.

“Who the hell let this get this bad?” Horuz groused, slopping a bucket of damn near acid across the floor. “This almost got into the main air vents. Y’know what’d happen if that came to be?”

“Guessin’ we’d all be breathing spores,” Kraglin answered.

“Spores ain’t even the half of it. Look at this. It’s already got its own cozy little ecosystem up in here.“

“Oh, it moved!” Nuts said, laughing as he spun a long stringy tentacle out of the mossy debris near the drainpipes. “Does this mean it feels? Is this torture? Are you practice, my green friend, my dribble drabble, my fungy mungus?”

“Stop talking,” Horuz said as he took the brush out of Nuts’ hands.

“How long?” Nuts asked, resigned.

Horuz didn’t even check his watch as he answered, giving him an hour to try and keep quiet while they tackled the mold and moss. Nuts shrugged, assumed it was fair, and took the equipment that Horuz handed him while the Sriar named Jek helped Kraglin pry the plates off the ceiling. Jek was alright, tested metal, an orphan with a bad habit of getting blind drunk after his shifts. Seemed most of the Ravagers followed that narrative. Wondered if it was the way Ravagers were or a Yondu Udonta specialty.

“Hose that down and we’ll set the wash to eat whatever it can,” Horuz said and pointed at the panels in each of Jek’s hands. He dumped six panels in front of Kraglin and reached for more. “Nuts, you tangle with that some more, I’ll feed you to it.”

Nuts just held up his hands and started walking away, a promise that he wasn’t there to antagonize, only that his curiosity usually got the best of him.

“Hey, Horuz?” Kraglin asked as he wiped his brow and took another set of panels that Jek had fetched. “It’s hot as balls in here. We don’t got a Pluvion aboard who can come in an’ freeze this gunk?”

“Not one who’s gonna crawl around with you idjits.”

“Seriously though,” said Kraglin. “It’s just swamp ass central in here.”

“Ass and balls, huh?” They each turned towards the doorway, rushing to their feet to salute their captain as he leaned in the entryway. “What’chu teachin’ these boys here, Horuz?”

“Sir,” Horuz said. He dropped the bucket of sluice and stomped over. “This place is a right mess. I don’t think we even got the supplies to tackle it.”

“Wait, then what the hell you got us doin’ in here?” asked Kraglin, tossing another ceiling plate with a grunt.

“Yeah,” Yondu said and glared over at the mossy walls. “Thinkin’ yer right. Gonna take fire and brimstone for this job. That ain’t why I came here.”

“Sir, before you start, we gotta clear them vents. It’s a danger to the air supply, fer starters, and you want this gunk messing up our—”

“I got it.  We’re close to the Juthain Port and I already got trade to get this boat scrubbed down with their little nano scalpers.” Horuz looked like he wilted. “Ain’t that what you wanted to hear?”

“I done wasted some of my best supplies on taming this already,” said Horuz. “Why didn’t ye say earlier.”

“I look like I care?” Yondu asked, thumbing a piece of moss off the wall. “I came down here cause we got us a job. A bank. Lookin’ fer any fliers we got.”

“Pilots?” Kraglin asked, bristling. Jek stepped up next to him, crossing his three sets of arms.

“We’re down our usuals and I got a couple of ships,” said Yondu, ignoring Kraglin and the others. “Want a couple of squadrons to watch the belts.”

“Ah.” Horuz nodded, softening a little. “Who is it? Bergahl?”

“These idiots think all them robotics are gonna keep it safe,” Yondu answered with a smirk. “Figure out if you can spare anybody. We’re meeting in the hangar in half.”

“Sir, I can pilot anything y—”

But Yondu pivoted out of the shower room without a word or a glance. Kraglin clapped his mouth shut, stuttering to a halt next to Horuz.

“Right,” Horuz said, drawing the word out. “So yer the one who got ‘im in the room then.” Kraglin didn’t say anything. He closed his eyes, fists tense at his sides.

Nuts wasn’t so patient to keep himself from asking, “The one who did what?”

“Nuts, I’ll brig you if you open yer mouth again while yer under orders to shut the hell up.”

Nuts tapped his head as agreement.

There wasn’t much else to be said. It was almost a miracle just seeing Yondu, after they’d all come aboard and started sailing away from Nidi. But any bad blood still stood firm between them and Kraglin had a worrying feeling in his guts that he was gonna get his comeuppance if he showed his face again. He really wanted to fly. He was good. He was damn good and it’s everything he wanted once he saw them M-ships. So, fine, he’d go to the hangar and see if he could get assigned one for this, whatever, this bank robbery gig.

Horuz chucked his empty bucket away, the concoction he’d stirred up melting into the grime across the disgusting floors. “Well, come on,” he said, leading them out of the shower room. “Captain said he needs us.”

*

Need is a strong word. It’s a good word, but it’s a strong word. Made of steel and clamps and ties. Yondu decided he just didn’t have use for it. Not when he was a young slave, taking his first beatings. He didn’t need anything then. Not escape, not reprieve. He didn’t understand those kinds of things. He yearned to return home, sure, but then he forgot what home was, and he forgot the faces of his family and he decided they weren’t important enough to hold onto anyways. Day to day to day to day was escaping the pain and moving onwards, an impulse at best, a primal urge if anything. He didn’t need when he was older, stuck in the everyday, waking up, escaping the gas chambers by stealing a mask off one of the other slaves, fighting with every overstretched nerve as the Ravagers boarded their battleship and took it from the Kree. It was automatic, it was programming, but it wasn’t need. Not when he was under Stakar, learning how to become, how to transform into the man he was. Learning what was an actual threat and what was sort’ve left over in his muscles from before and how sometimes taking a mask meant taking a gift just to breathe in the void and not a necessary evil stripping it off another slave’s face and watching them writhe on the ground. It meant figuring out what was a gesture of warmth and what was a gesture of hate and how he was supposed to answer to both. That was action, that was discovery, that was reprogramming, but not need. Yondu didn’t need of anyone, not even himself.

But want? Well, a man’s got desires.

He wasn’t even entirely sure why he spared that skinny little twerp back at Nidi’s. He woke up sick as sin and ready to kill, but the second he faced the Xandarian, cursing him out for what he done, and watched him step up to take the brunt of that ugly bastard who had come to kill them, despite everything, he knew he wanted him.

Yondu made certain, even if he was up for forgiving, he wasn’t going to forget. A captain doesn’t keep his title if he goes about forgetting every slight delivered unto him. He kept Kraglin on the ship, gave orders to Horuz to keep him busy awhile and made certain they didn’t cross paths. Meant that Kraglin was out of reach and out of sight and weren’t that better?

The bank job was a fluke. It was last minute intelligence come off of a comm with Stakar not two cycles ago and they just so happened to be in the right region to strike. They’d just come from another trade and Yondu had sent several of his usual pilots off to settle the arrangements with the Juthain Port—those that left knew they were getting some ship leave and had basically begged to be sent. Yondu figured they’d earned their time off. So, sure, he could use a few extra pilots to take care of this bank left on the outskirts. It was like it was begging to be taken anyhow. Besides, he heard Kraglin itching to get a chance to fly an M-ship, and that want was squirreling in his guts. Yondu _wanted_ to see him fly. Yondu _wanted_ to see what he might get up to.

They all came up in the hangar bay, everyone that was left after he’d sent the rest off to Juthain Port. It was a ragtag group at best, which is exactly the kinda crew Yondu liked. They were Ravagers, not organized Nova Corp Denarians. Horuz and his team stumbled in the back. Nuts was quick to join up with his usual folks, Taserface, Gef, Retch, and Brahl. They swallowed him up in their ranks.

Taserface had made a huge stink about wanting to get to Juthain Port with the others. Said he was owed the break, said he deserved to get some action, said a whole bunch of other shit. Yondu asked why he thought he could give orders and make demands and, just to put him in his place, kept him aboard. Taserface was gonna be heading the drill and do a damn fine job or they’d muck up the whole mission and eveyone’d know it’d be his fault. While he was angry and loud, he appreciated that Yondu wasn’t gonna budge on it. The captain was a mean sonuvabitch and he had to respect that.

“Alright,” said Yondu, addressing his team. “We got ourselves a bank heist near the Belt of Bergahl. It’s remote. They got the place rigged with Skrull security tech. We got the scans back and it’s all AIs.”

“Nothin’ there even to kill?” Retch asked and pouted next to the giant ugly bastard Taserface.

“Plenty of shit to steal, though,” Horuz offered. As Interim First Mate, he could punch back and have Yondu’s support on it. “Could get all our dues up in one job then?”

“And then some,” Yondu answered with a nod. “The belt itself ain’t nothing fancy. Yer standard asteroid belt. Course the Skrull like to plant the usual bombs throughout, something that could wipe a couple of these ships off the map. So, watch it out there.”

The Ravagers clunked their fists to their chest. Yondu nodded at them as a group and ordered them to stop suckin’ their thumbs and go prep their M-ships. They dispersed, rounding up any gear they thought necessary as they did the usual start-up routines.

After Yondu took Riv and Beister for his own ship, after he’d made certain Taserface had the drill set up right and was going to punch through that bank like a bullet through paper, after three of the ships were prepped and ready, he went back over to Horuz. Jek and Kraglin were decoupling the grav ports while Horuz was busying himself in the galley. He’d already put in his decryption key in the M-Ship’s docking station, the same key that stated, above all else, that the M-ship belong to Horuz under Udonta’s Ravager clan. Anybody in the Ravager fleet who owned one of the M-ships had a similar key, usually set to their own personal biometrics. Horuz, who wasn’t much of a flier, kept his on a chain round his neck. Harder to lose the damn thing if it was always hanging there. He saw Yondu coming up and stood out on the gangplank, arms crossed while the other two did their work.

“Gonna be in the pilot chair now,” Yondu said and laughed. “You think you can handle it?”

“Pilot?” Horuz asked, still leaning in the entryway, arms crossed and a foot hooked around his other ankle. “That boy there’s been jumping at the bit to pilot.”

“Keep him copilot next to you,” Yondu said.

“Wait, copilot?” Kraglin ducked under the ship and came around. He still had his jumpsuit half-unzipped and tied the sleeves snug around his waist. Had on a filthy top with the arms cut off and ripped spots down his ribs, showing off more skin than he’d ever before. He was greased up to an oily shine, sweat standing on his forehead, and his lips were curled up in an angry snarl. “Sir, all due respect, fuck off with that copilot shit. I can fly this thing.”

“You wanna run that by me again?” Yondu asked, stepping up as Kraglin swiped an oily handprint down his chest.

“I can fly it,” Kraglin said, more insistent, but not willing to get up in Yondu’s face about it. “I swear. Better than Horuz can, certainly. Sir, if ya just give me a chance.”

“Copilot,” Yondu said and nodded up at Horuz. “Keep an eye on him, Horuz. He try anything, I’ll chuck him to our sorry cook and serve him up as some more of that damn awful soup.”

“Whuh? But I—”

“Copilot,” Yondu answered over his shoulder, already turning back to his ship. He didn’t want Kraglin or Horuz to see the smile on his face, watching him get riled up like that. Yeah, seven hells, he wanted to see Kraglin fly, but sometimes it was better to push buttons and show who was boss, even to his own damn emotions. “Let’s go, boys! Got us a bank to rob!”

Even as he crossed over to his ship, he could hear Kraglin arguing with Jek, catching the tail end of it. “…the hell kinda…I _like_ the soup.”

“No taste, that one,” Yondu muttered to himself, hoping it were honestly true. He wasn’t himself a delicacy. Yondu aimed to prove, even to himself, that Kraglin—no good scoundrel that he was—at least put in the effort and stuck by. That Kraglin wanted this, just as much as Yondu did. And he figured the best way he could do that was push him till he found the walls of that want. And if Kraglin broke? Or did something so stupid Yondu would have to kill him? Well, then he was sure he’d done and saved himself a lotta heartache.

*

The Belt of Bergahl stretched like a river between several planets, roping them together with hazardous material. The planets were dwarfs, cratered and unpopulated. But they were rich in many materials, hence the constant robotic sentinels courting the area and keeping track of the machinery sent down to soil to mine. The bank, designated specifically for the Skrull kept perch on the largest rock in the Belt of Bergahl, anchored by thrusters and grav-skew tech near Dunholdt. Yondu and the drill team lead their assault, coming up behind Dunholdt’s burned-out crust, using the light off the sun to blind security cameras pointing their direction. They had a half a cycle to get in and out without tripping the cameras, but Captain Udonta wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the Skrull sentinels.

The M-ships swarmed towards the hovering bank, a sturdy-looking gray building poking out of most of the large rock in the Belt. A few asteroids littered their path, fragments dusting the space like sprinkles. It wasn’t a quantum asteroid belt, thank the stars, and they sailed on straight through.

Horuz had the controls of the ship and he groused the whole way, white-knuckling his joy sticks. Their ship bucked against the pull of the bank’s grave skew generators. Kraglin grit his teeth, sitting rigid in the copilot chair.

“Would any of you honestly _tell_ him if I took control?” Kraglin asked, but Horuz only answered by pointing out the front window, waving over at Nork and his crew. They waived back. “Okay, yeah, but Captain’s up at the front. Like he’s going to come back here and see if I’m flying.”

“He might,” Horuz answered through his gnarly beard. “Now shut it. I’m concentrating.”

“This is so stupid,” said Kraglin, kicking his foot up against the base of the console.

“Seriously,” said Jek, vibrating in the seat behind them as Horuz clipped a dust trail and shook the ship like he was trying to loosen all their teeth. “Boss, I’m just saying. Pump the controls back over if Yondu comes back. I got the ships up on display back here. I won’t say anything.”

“Shut it!” Horuz barked louder.

“Yeah, we ain’t Nuts. You can’t—”

“I’ll jettison you,” Horuz said, glancing back over his shoulder. “You want that?”

“Might be preferable to how this boat’s rocking,” Jek answered, but he put his head down and was intently studying the yellow display in front of him, ticking his small dark eyes over the readouts.

Eventually, the squadron had pulled up near the bank, hovering in position as Yondu and the drill team slammed into it. The light off the sun streaked across them, lending shadows to the cold bank ahead of them. Nork and his ship listed to their portside, while Maffer Ii and they’re ship hovered lazily on the starboard. Even just coasting, essentially parked above with a view of the oncoming sentinels, Horuz managed to make the ship jerk around enough to upset their digestive tracks. Kraglin bit his lip to keep whatever gruel he’d forced down to stay there.

The drill team was actually working beautifully. Taserface and company put the heavy machine right up along the bank, sending off white-hot sparks as they began to breach the first hull. As expected, a few lithe, needle-shaped machines piloted out to meet them. Captain called out, ordering evasive maneuvers as they plucked the robots form the sky, firing on them with a few proton blasts.

The next wave picked up as soon as the first sentinels were trashed. While the drill rocked against the bank walls, magma hot steal bubbling around her hull, the base flashed with warning lights, red blooms around the perimeter followed by white and then purple.

“Alright, here’s where the fun starts,” said Horuz. Kraglin glanced back at Jek and his datapad readouts. The Sriar slowly shook his head, squinting at the readouts. Another flash from the alarm lights burned across his metallic face, highlighting the concern. “Too bad these ain’t piloted by real folks, right? Just a bunch o’ mindless machines?”

“Uh, sir?” started Jek, and he flipped the screen around, waving at Kraglin to pull up the readouts beside him.

“Oh, don’t ‘sir’ me, Jek,” answered Horuz. “I ain’t the captain and I don’t wanna be.”

“Right, but, you see this?”

“See what?” Horuz twisted around while Kraglin pulled up the readout. The screen was covered with white dots, a wave of them encroaching on their tiny squadron. “Ah, hells, is that—”

“They’re gonna try and Junk us.”

“Captain!” Horuz called into his comm.

“I see ‘em,” Captain answered. “Keep ‘em off the drill.”

“Sir, that’s a shit ton o’ Skrull scrappers,” said Nork from his m-ship, which had already spun around looking for the wall of machines.

“Well, don’t let ‘em scrap ya then,” said Maffer Ii on the other line. His team laughed in the background, hollering up a storm.

“What’re we doin’ out there, boys?” called Taserface, his voice tight like he was cranking the drill shaft himself.

“Forming cover,” Yondu answered. “Let’s go. Take out these damn scrappers and we all get paid.”

“Aye, Cap’n!” answered Maffer Ii.

“Aye-aye, Cap,” answered Nork, less jubilant about it.

“Read ya loud ‘n’ clear, sir,” said Horuz, his voice trembling with the vibrations of the ship. He glanced over at Kraglin as he switched off the comm. “You seriously think yer a better pilot?”

“Better than you!” Kraglin answered, sitting up straight. “I mean…well….”

“Yeah, we ain’t got time to be all sentimental about our words,” said Horuz. He pumped the controls and passed the steering on over to Kraglin’s side of the ship. “Show us what you got, boy, cause I’d like to see the other side of this day with both my eyes and limbs intact, y’hear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Now don’t call me—”

Horuz’s usual answer was whisked away as Kraglin twisted the M-ship in a tight spiral downwards, slicing the craft close to the bank as he picked up some extra inertia from the grav pump under the bank. Jek swallowed his answer too and they pinned themselves in their seats, holding on. Kraglin, though. Kraglin felt like he was lighting up like a cannon, his heart hammering as he shot them towards the wall of scrappers. He didn’t twitch, or sway, or bank out of the oncoming onslaught.

Though he’d spent most of his time on a Class Nyl Ovapori Starskipper with hardly any firepower to speak of and no engine boost that could get his blood to boil with a chase, the controls of the Ravager M-ship seemed to mold perfectly to Kraglin’s hand. He didn’t have to second guess a twist of the joystick or where the primary cannons were located. His mind went still as undisturbed water and he breathed evenly right as he flew across the scrapper wave, taking out a line of them in a flash.

Nork and Maffer Ii quickly took up space behind him. Nork was cautious, hanging back to take a more sniper approach to their problem, picking off scrappers that got too close and relaying the details of the swarm over the comm. Kraglin never answered any of the calls, letting Horuz maintain the illusion that he’d suddenly become a really good pilot and still had control of the ship. Maffer Ii didn’t take such a sane approach. While he wasn’t highly skilled, he was highly delusional about the integrity of his M-ship hulls, and slammed it into any scrapper like he wanted to head butt each one personally.

“Maff, yer gonna crack yer hull y’do that again,” Nork said over the Comm.

“Then I’ll just shoot outta this bastard like a cannon blast and rip the circuit boards from their underbellies,” Maffer Ii answered, whooping at the next scrapper carcass strewn across his ship.

“You space them boys with you, you owe me a whole new crew,” Yondu said, cutting across them. His ship skipped close by and Kraglin angled their windshield away, ducking under the swarm so he could shield them from their captain’s eye.

“I’ll get you a dozen crews. Poach ‘em all from the best prisons,” answered Maffer Ii just as he slammed his ship again. Something sparked and came off the side of his ship, but it was still flying and his team was still hollering like this was the only time they felt alive. Kraglin only had a distant feeling that all them psychos were from a crew _he_ was now a part of.  

“It ain’t right he’s practically a sentient rock anyhow,” said Horuz, leaning back in his seat as Kraglin twisted up around a group of scrappers trying to slice off their wings. “Easy, lad, they almost nicked us there!”

“Then _shoot_ them,” Kraglin answered back through clenched teeth.

“I got you,” said Jek behind them and set his display with a quick shove, lifting up the controls to their secondary cannon and honing in on the oncoming swarm. Jek opened fire, ripping through the scrappers faster than Kraglin could line up their sights. Horuz glanced between them best he could as he tried to keep his lunch in his stomach and finally just sat back, letting the two finish off what they done started.

They were making great work out of the swarm. A few of the bulkier sentinels came out, raking large claw-like apparatuses at the lithe M-ships, but they were too slow and too bulky to cause any harm. Kraglin flew around them in circles while Jek blasted them with the secondary cannons. Nork kept any speedy scrappers off their back and Maffer Ii just kept on doing what Maffer Ii did best. Even Yondu’s ship was slipping into the swarm and leaving wreckage in its wake, a long fiery tale of red slipping off behind his ship.

“Boss.” Taserface’s voice cut through the jubilation. “We just breached the vault. Starting up the extraction.”

They all heard the confirmation from Taserface. Kraglin hollered with the rest of them, thrilled to be part of the team, even if they were a bunch of nut jobs.

“Hurry it up,” was Yondu’s answer. “I wanna be at the Juthain Port yesterday.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” Taserface answered.

The scrapper swarm was halved by the time the drill breached the bank vault. They had already taken out four of the big heavy sentinels and the mid-sized rock slingers with their claws were finally starting to skitter across the asteroid belt, either returning to a recharge station or looking for new ammunition. After Horuz gave Kraglin controls, the mission had been a breeze. He was glad to see the Ravages come together, even as a ragtag group as such, but was a little heartbroken they’d have to return to the Eclector so shortly and he’d have to give control back on over to Horuz. Seemed a waste to wither away on engine detail.

“Hey,” said Taserface, his voice crackling again on the shoddy comm link. One of the many repairs that would hopefully come from their stay at the Juthain Port. “Who’s watching our tail. We got something picking at us.”

“Nork, weren’t you keepin’ yer eye peeled?” asked Yondu. Kraglin wheeled the M-ship around to see what was happening to the drill as Maffer Ii almost crashed into the asteroid, tossed aside by a swipe from one of the sentinels. “What’s goin’ on over there?”

“ _Ik thul tu taltumak_.” Nork twirled around to spot the scrapper picking at the back of the drill. “I’ve only so many eyes, Captain. I cannot—”

“We’ve been pierced!” shouted Taserface.

“Get yer damn suits on now bef—”

The back of the drill opened, an explosion of pale white gas shooting into the void. Some debris skittered around the scrapper droid. If they had their space suits on hand, perhaps they could have slapped them onto their chests right before the drill was depressurized, but it seemed unlikely and the only one of them who could survive a long trip out in space was Maffer Ii. Seconds had already passed and while nobody could say whether some of the debris floating out of the drill were bodies, the crew inside didn’t have long.

Kraglin was by far not the closest one to the drill. He’d been leading out further into the swarm to head them off, letting Maffer Ii and Yondu take care of the swarm up front while Nork did his work on the sentinels. But he didn’t sit there, waiting to watch the Ravagers in the drill fly out of the hole and disappear into the void. Jek followed him implicitly, cutting a line clean through the scrappers as they raced on over to the drill.

“Horuz,” said Kraglin, pressing the M-ship to the limit of her speed. “ Put the bulkhead down in the cargo. We’re gonna pick ‘em up.”

“We don’t got time t—”

“It’ll be messy, but we can do it,” said Kraglin, and took them through a tight corkscrew as they dived towards the drill.

Horuz tilted a screen up next to him, matching the readouts over on Jek’s. He tapped the controls and down below, severing off the cargo hold, a yellow translucent bulkhead slammed into place. Kraglin was almost on the drill. He didn’t see Yondu’s ship above them, and ignored Nork listing next to a sentinel, stunned by one of the pulses coming off the sentinel’s arms. If they were smart, they’d put on their space suits now and get ready in case they were breached.

As they approached, the scrapper was tearing apart the drill, tossing chunks of metal behind it that floated off in a cloud above the bank. It was hard to tell what was crew and what wasn’t. Kraglin squinted at the wreckage, honing in on the scrapper with a surgeon’s precision before he opened fire on its back. There was a jolt, a streak of yellow and white flames before it rocked back and disintegrated. Kraglin drove them through the debris, turned the M-ship in a tight arc and opened the cargo hatch as he scooped up five twirling bodies out in the cold.

“Jek?” asked Kraglin. He closed the hatch to the cargo and sped off, jumping them back towards the Eclector.

“On it,” Jek answered and slapped a hand on Horuz. They went down to the cargo to see who or what they’d collected and if any of them sorry bastards were even alive.


	6. He Don't Make It, You Don't Make It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are you worried about dearest Nuts? Kraglin is. You should be too.

It was messier than he would’ve liked. After that quick stunt to collect crew from the drill, Yondu, Maffer Ii, and Nork finished off the swarm and gathered whatever they could from the wreckage before a second scouting unit was sent out to protect the bank. They got their payout, but they had to jump back to the Eclector without the drill. It’d be hard to replace it. Harder to crack any of the banks in the region without it. Yondu figured another trip to Victus V would be in their future.

When Yondu finally came aboard the Eclector, he went straight to the med bay to check on the crew from the drill. They’d managed to collect everyone, which was a damn miracle in and of itself, and most of them came back intact. Mighty impressive flying to get them all back, for sure. They needed to be tended to, of course—the wounds from being out in the void were extensive, but they had plenty of supplies to deal with it. But it was their youngest, the half-mad Nuts who was hooked up to all sorts of machinery while the Doc and the Tailor hovered over him, trying to save his damn life.

Nuts had caught a bit of shrapnel when he was ejected from the drill. The scrapper, doing exactly as the name implies, cut a ragged whole in the drill and began undoing any part of the ship it could get its hands on. Nuts caught a claw and was dragged out into the void across some of the metal. When Horuz and Jek had found him, he was bleeding like mad down half his body, his thighs soaked. He laughed a little once he had air back in his lungs, hardly making a sound other than that little odd giggle of his as Jek tried to find the source of the bleeding. He was the first one awake and then subsequently passed out before they even made it back to the ship. They figured he’d been gutted, but the Doc and the Tailor would figure it out.

Taserface was up when Yondu came to the med bay. He was shoving his way over to Nuts’s bed, getting all up in the Doc’s face as he demanded to know what happened. Yondu stepped up, quiet as a shadow, and grabbed Taserface’s harry shoulder, spinning him back and shoving him hard towards his bed.

“How _dare_ you t—”

“You touch Doc again, I’ll brig ya,” said Yondu, pushing Taserface back onto the mattress the second he tried to get up. “Seem like yer healthy enough for it anyhow. She’s doin’ what she can to help. Let her get to it and don’t get in her way.”

“If anything happens to him, Captain. If _anything_ —”

“He’s bein’ tended to,” said Yondu, looking back as the two best medical minds on the ship hovered over Nuts. Taserface snarled, his sharp yellow teeth frothy with spit. “You ain’t helpin’ any, _Brad_.”

Taserface snarled again, flinching at the name before he sunk back into the mattress, arms crossed over his heavily bandaged chest. Retch and Brahl had come out better than Taserface and Narblik. They were sprawled out on the same cot, limbs twisting as they napped through the light KnockOut Doc had dosed them with. Narblik was scratching at the patch of cool blue simuskin slathered on his arm, ignoring the mask stapled down on his face to keep his air supply natural. He didn’t seem to mind the extra tubes or the blood bag swinging over his head. Just that his arm was itching like mad.

A few of the other crewmembers had come down to check on the drill team. Nork and Maffer Ii were there, along with the rest of the teams that had been in the ships. That Krylorian punk who worked in the mess hall came by with small hard chunks of bread to share, smiling his weird goofy smile at anyone who took them.

And then there was Horuz. Horuz had to be there. He was the First Mate, and he’d come to Yondu the second they were all back on the ship. He’d also been looking after the new recruits and while Nuts clearly liked to hang with Taserface and his lot—since they’d all come aboard together in the first place—he would tail with Horuz whenever they did any cleaning or patch jobs around the ship. He had a knack for it, and Horuz was one of the few who could stand Nuts for more than a solar cycle.

“That was some pretty slick flying out there,” said Yondu, catching Horuz by the door into the med bay.

“Sometimes I surprise even myself,” answered Horuz without looking up. He had an eye on the crew in the med bay itself, not exactly hovering, but keeping a lookout for anything to go south with Nuts there in the corner.

“That’s one way to put it,” said Yondu. He looked around until he found the man he was actually hunting after. “How long you been down here?”

“Long as everyone else, I guess,” answered Kraglin, hovering near the corner. He was leaning against the wall, eyes unblinking as he watched the Doc and the Tailor. There was one of Oblo’s muffin-things in his fist, untouched. Yondu wasn’t sure if the bread was just as inedible as the rest of his cooking, or if Kraglin there was actually worried about Nuts. Hadn’t been on the crew that long, but they all formed tight bonds. It’s how the Ravagers kept it together during long stretches out amongst the stars. “He’ll be okay, though, right?”

“Don’t know,” answered Yondu, glancing Kraglin up and down. “I know you flew that ship,” he said, dark and mean. Kraglin started to stand up to his full height, stretching upwards, almost dropping Oblo’s bread as he fumbled around for an excuse. Yondu just pointed a finger at Kraglin’s chest, a warning, before he stepped away to go to the bridge and order the nav team to step on it and get them to Juthain port already.

*

It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault the scrapper got the drill, or that Nuts got dragged across the debris. Fact was, Kraglin had saved all them Ravagers’ lives. He knew that, of course he did, but by the stars if Nuts died, Kraglin knew Yondu would blame him. He was flying the ship, he’d gone against orders. If Nuts died, Kraglin would be gutted and spaced in the same breath.

There were a lot of things Kraglin might be confused about. Children were an odd sort and willingly keeping them just seemed cruel. The popularity of Olosi brand grubblins compared to the original Guru Gub Grubs was almost criminally reprehensible. People fighting over and going out of their way to steal any jewels from the Quar, when everybody knew they were basically candy. These things, sure, they confused him. But Nuts’s death? Yeah. That was something he was absolutely sure Yondu would pin on him. Because he knew.

He knew.

There was no telling which way Nuts was going to go. He’d been bleeding pretty badly once he was thawed from his time spent out in the void, and while the minor capillaries on his face had burst across his nose and cheeks, splitting lines across his lips and aggravating the metal plate in his head, for most part he would have bounced right back. He was young, and Kraglin had been quick to fetch them. But the bleeding from his guts was substantial and he was sure the kid was going to have a scar like a zipper going up his abdomen. There hadn’t been anything visible when Jek carried him into the med bay with Horuz hanging by his side. Just all that blood. But it was a lot. More than enough for most people.

Kraglin pinched his lips together as he ducked under one of the M-ships. There wasn’t much to do besides wait for the inevitable. The hangar bay was mostly empty, seeing as how the Ravagers were all gone to the Port of Juthain or were working their shift up on the bridge or were down waiting to see what was gonna happen to Nuts in the med bay. It was quiet there. The deep rumble of the engines filtered in amongst the ships as a soft white noise. Kraglin could get lost in his thoughts then, admiring the crafts, tightening any lose apparatus on Horuz’s ship from the fight or rubbing down the captain’s M-ship until the hull gleamed like a mirror. It was peaceful almost, and, most important, it kept his hands busy.

It wasn’t even rightly the death threat from the captain that had him squirming. He’d been threatened by his parents for getting in the way. He’d been threatened by Harker Vandalor after any job that didn’t go perfect. He’d been threatened by Harker’s crew for taking any share what he was owed. Death was a thing that’d been hanging after his head since he’d been born. He was used to it. He expected it.

No, the thing that bothered him, deep down, was that he’d _liked_ this crew. They were a sloppy mess of murderers and thieves, to be sure, but they had each other’s backs in a fight and they shared everything amongst themselves. Their captain was a frightening mean sonuvabitch, but that fact he’d come down to med bay to check on the crew, the fact that he’d gone into the dogfight, piloting in the lead there with the drill, meant he cared. Deeply. And Kraglin wasn’t ready to let go of that feeling yet.

“You went and got soft,” Kraglin muttered to himself, leaning back against the anchor column of the captain’s M-ship. Kraglin put his hand on the column structure, the metal cool but pleasant under his hand. “You wasn’t s’posed to catch feelings or nothing.”

“What’d you catch now?”

Kraglin was startled by the sound. He hadn’t heard anybody come into the hangar bay, not by their boots or nothing, and he jumped out from under the M-ship, snapping his hand to his chest soon as Yondu came round to find him. There was a knife already in his free hand, flashing by his side just in case.

“Nothing,” Kraglin said with a gulp, before he dropped his hand and, slowly, sheathed the weapon. He looked up and remembered to finally add, “Sir.”

“Should I be worried you rigged my ship with a bomb there, Kraggles?” asked Yondu and nodded at the hull of his M-ship. Kraglin looked up, eyebrow crinkled. Before he could say anything like, “I’d never,” the captain beckoned for him to come closer. Kraglin’s knife was sheathed, sure, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t draw it and put it in Yondu’s gullet in a flash. He was ready to go down with a fight. He was sure of that.

Or, well, mostly sure. Wasn’t he?

Kraglin sighed, straightened his shoulders at last and came over to stand in front of his captain.

“How is…how is he?” Kraglin started, after he dutifully cleared his throat.

“Who?” Yondu asked with a little glimmer in his eye. Damn him for making Kraglin squirm. Just be a man and gut him already, like it was even fair.

“You know,” said Kraglin and closed his eyes. “Sir.”

“You make it so easy, Kraggles,” said Yondu with a hint of admiration in his voice. Kraglin opened his eyes to catch Yondu sizing him up, biting his lip in the same instant. He was distracted as Yondu muttered to himself, almost absently, “Too easy.”

“Sir?”

“Yer askin’ after Nuts, right?” Yondu snapped his red eyes up and smiled, cheeky but humorless. “Nuts is gone.”

“G-Gone?” Kraglin almost choked on the word. He felt himself go dizzy as the lights overhead dimmed by increments. Before he let himself collapse, he schooled himself and tightened his jaw. _Get a grip, Obfonteri. You been asking for this yer whole damn life. You already said so yerself._ Kraglin cleared his throat. “How did he…what happened?”

“Well,” said Yondu, shrugged, and swiped a thumb under his nose. “Kid was a mess when you brought him in. You saw. He’d almost bled out ‘fore we even got back. Doc, she did what she could, but she could only save the one.”

“One? One what?” asked Kraglin, forcing himself to stand upright even if he was going pale as a sheet.

“When he shot outta the drill there, he got slammed into a bit that done tried to castrate him, far as Doc is concerned. The Tailor managed to stitch him up so, said he could save the one, but that’s barely a testicle if I ever seen one.”

“ _What_?”

“Got ‘em all chanting Half-Nut when I left,” said Yondu and chuckled. “Boy seems t’have taken to it well enough, so. But he was nuts to begin with, weren’t he?”

“So he’s _alive_?” Kraglin asked with a croak.

“Alive and intact,” said Yondu and then waffled his hand before he said, “Well. Mostly.”

“By the stars!” Kraglin almost lost his footing as his legs went to jelly from relief. He touched his chest and swooned from the news, only to catch himself on the wing of the M-ship next to him.   
“Can’t believe he pulled through! I thought. I thought fer sure you was gonna kill me.”

“Kill you?” Yondu scoffed, looking around as he did. “Why the hell would I kill you? Yer the best damn pilot I got.”

Kraglin smiled at that despite himself. It was the best thing Yondu’d ever said to him and his head was still reeling from all the good things he’d done heard already. He almost wanted to vomit, he was so happy, or maybe even let a tear slip out, but he just laughed, touching his chest again where he might put a fist in a Ravager salute.

“You care ‘bout these boys, too, which is a good thing t’see,” said Yondu, cocking his hip against the pillar there next to Kraglin. He crossed his arms, reaching haphazardly into his coat before he gave up on it and just leaned back, looking out across the hangar bay. “Yer a good fit for this life, Kraggles.”

“Sir. I. I don’t know if….I.” He gave up on that sorry line of thought right quick. Let it die with his old life, as it were. Kraglin leaned back too and took a steadying breath. “You know my name’s Kraglin, right?”

Yondu just cocked an eyebrow, studying Kraglin with half his face. He didn’t say anything, but his mouth twitched with a smile. Then he looked away again.

“Yer a mouthy sonuvabitch,” said Yondu. “That get you into trouble before?”

“All the time, sir,” said Kraglin.

“You thick enough you never learned?”

“Nah. I figure I can take care of myself if I need to.” Kraglin patted the blade there at his side. He could, too. Plenty of times he’d gone into a blaster fight with a blade and come out the victor. And while Yondu was digging at him, he didn’t say any of it mean or nothing. Gruff, yes, but kindly too, in his own obscure way.

“There ain’t anything yer bad at then?” asked Yondu.

“Negotiations, I guess,” said Kraglin.

“Flirtin’s kinda like negotiation.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing,” said Yondu and shoved away from the anchor column. He stood in front of Kraglin, hands on his hips, showing off a slew of buckles and leather bits, as well as that fancy holster with his magic arrow. “Got an honest question fer ya. Came all this way down here just t’ find ya too, so, don’t think about sayin’ ‘no’ after I ask.” Kraglin wasn’t sure if he liked where this was going, but he nodded all the same. “Horuz did fine as an interim, but I gots t’ find me a proper First Mate. Someone with a good head on his shoulders. Someone who cares ‘bout what happens to these men. Someone who takes orders, but can dole ‘em out just as good. Whadya say, eh? You wanna be my First Mate?”

“First. Sir, that’s….” Kraglin’s head was still reeling. He wasn’t sure if he’d even heard him correctly, what with all this good news coming his way. But he looked down and Yondu had on a real serious scowl, standing steady as a steel rod while waiting for Kraglin’s answer. “I mean, yes. Yes, sir. Of course!”

Yondu smiled again, and leaned in to clap Kraglin on the back. “You fuck this up,” he said, digging his fingers into Kraglin's collarbone, almost a threat but almost an embrace, too.

“You’ll gut me?” Kraglin asked, finishing the thought. Yondu just tapped his nose as a reply. “Figure another scar’d just look cool anyhow,” said Kraglin with a laugh. Yondu seemed to like that too. He joined in and the two were soon doubled over, building up on each other for no good reason other than the fact that they needed to. Let off some steam. Bond. Whatever they’d use to justify it later. It was the best thing they had next to fighting to the death.

After their jubilation started to taper off, Yondu wiped his eye and clicked his tongue. He figured they’d send out announcements over the Eclector’s system come the start of the next day. Let everyone rest and recoup on their way to Juthain Port. Most the crew was missing anyhow, and it was kinda nice to have the place to themselves.

“Weird how quiet it is, though, ain’t it?” asked Yondu, knocking his knuckles against the M-ship behind them.

“It is,” said Kraglin distantly, sinking back against the column again.

“You coming along or what?”

“You need me now, or I got some time to process everything?” asked Kraglin.

“I guess I can give you that,” Yondu answered, and he shook his fist up by his chest, thinking something. “Got a whole lotta stuff t’ show you. I’m sure you know most o’ the ship, now that Horuz had you helpin’ him patch it and all.”

“I know every dark inch this boat o’ yers has to offer,” said Kraglin with a sly, almost covert smile. Yondu pinched his eyes a little at that, studying his new First Mate. “Ye gotta lot of, uh, ‘hidden corners’ if you will. Places to be discreet.”

“Captain’s cabin is the best place for discreet,” said Yondu, pushing out his lips in thought. “You got some secret planning to do, I say it’s always best behind a locked door.”

“Well, sure, but I don’t have access to that.”

“Yer First Mate now.”

“Yeah?” Kraglin crossed his arms and his smirk grew, spreading across his stubbly-face. “So? That don’t mean you’ll let me in, does it?”

“Guess you’ll just hafta come by and see if it’ll let you in or now.”

“Guess I will,” said Kraglin.

There was a lull then. Kraglin laughing to himself, stubbing his toe against the floor. They were thinking back at that time in Nidi’s place, rushing up on each other with needy hands and hand holds and threats. They were wondering if the other was thinking it too, suspecting not. Kraglin didn’t, anyways. He didn’t let himself linger on it much, instead wondering what was gonna be like now that he had responsibilities on the ship. Kiss a flovi kob’s ass; seemed his luck was finally turning. Kraglin started to stand up again, and gave Yondu a nod. He’d head off to the mess and grab himself something to eat, let himself rejoice with a bottle of something mean and dark off Oblo’s back supply. He almost said his plans aloud, too, but they quickly disappeared when he turned into a blue wall.

Yondu rushed him without warning. Kraglin had his hand on his blade, pressing flat against the column behind him, a necessary habit, as Yondu came up and put a hand around Kraglin’s neck, tugging him down to meet him face to face. They kissed, suddenly, violently. Yondu pushed up into him and Kraglin had to push back for fear of their teeth clanking against each other. The blue skin tasted salty, sour, like ale and sweat. The hand on his neck was grappling hard and held him in place, but Kraglin was the one to press his body up along Yondu’s, stuck to him, drawn in like he were a powerful magnet. Yondu grabbed Kraglin’s hand and shoved it up by the M-ship, their fingers entwined. Kraglin didn’t dare let go. Even as they dug at each other hungrily, chasing towards bruised lips and bent fingertips, Kraglin closed his eyes, ignoring Yondu’s red eyes boring up into him like he was afraid the Xandarian was gonna spook and run. But he’d never. Never.

And then Yondu broke apart as suddenly. Nobody had come into the hangar bay. They were well off alone, what with anyone aboard still hollering over Half-Nut during his recovery. Kraglin was panting despite himself, but Yondu spun around and marched out from under the M-ship and headed straight for the door. He didn’t shove off, neither. Just kissed, kissed like he meant it, and left. That part maybe stung worst of all, now that Kraglin had time to breathe.

“S-Sir,” Kraglin stuttered, licking his lips to keep some of the taste there on his tongue. “What do I…uh…?” But Yondu didn’t answer. He made a rude gesture over his shoulder, one that was common among the Xandarian culture. Kraglin laughed at that, too stunned to realize there was something left in his hand. He finally opened his palm, looking down at the encryption key to an M-ship. When he looked up, Yondu was already out of the hangar bay. Kraglin wrapped his fist tight around the key and ran after his captain, knowing he was stepping into a wake he’d never escape from.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had a lot of fun making a quick origin as to why Half-Nut is the way that he is and also got them to kiss, so, high five to me! Thanks for reading.


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